


AU: Indigo Multiple

by wheel_pen



Series: Indigo [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Multiple Personalities, Slavery, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-25 19:07:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 91,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4972855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Queenoftheuniverse’s story SLEEPINGJOHN, in which John has multiple personalities due to trauma in his past. I thought that meshed well with my ideas for Indigo’s history, though I still consider this an alternate universe to my series. I’ve borrowed a number of themes and details from Queenoftheuniverse’s story, which I highly recommend!</p><p>Chapter 1: The death of Indigo’s former master, Simmerson, is now being investigated as a homicide, and the slave was one of the last people to see him alive. The interested parties gather at the Simmerson estate to uncover the truth, but returning to that place of horrible memories causes something disturbing to stir within Indigo.</p><p>Chapter 2: Sherlock travels to Indigo’s hometown to reveal the roots of his trauma. And, domestic fun with the alters!</p><p>Chapter 3: After the Fall. Mycroft has finally tracked down Indigo, who vanished when he thought Sherlock died. But it will be an uphill battle to convince him to return to the man who broke his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [SLEEPINGJOHN](https://archiveofourown.org/works/721366) by [Queenoftheuniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queenoftheuniverse/pseuds/Queenoftheuniverse). 



> The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.  
> Inherent in slavery and other forms of subjugation are dubious consent, unhealthy relationships, and violence.  
> This story has not been Britpicked. Please let me know if I get anything horribly wrong.  
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

Sherlock didn’t sleep much anyway, especially when he was thinking about a case; though lately it seemed he’d been sleeping more, thanks to Indigo and his passive demand for routine. Sherlock was not yet sure if this was a good thing or not. At any rate he still woke easily, even if he couldn’t figure out what had triggered him; especially in a strange place, his mind buzzing with facts and inferences.

The rest of the bed was empty; perhaps Indigo had run the water or something and awakened him. But Sherlock didn’t hear anyone walking around, and Indigo never returned to bed. Maybe he’d had a nightmare and gotten up to go sleep on the couch, Sherlock reasoned. Being back in this house could easily give him nightmares. Sherlock rolled over to look for him, unwilling to let him go through this alone.

Instead of Indigo sleeping on the couch, however, he saw a stranger in the room.

Sherlock’s eyes darted to the hallway door. The chair was still wedged under the knob, the lock presumably still in place—extra security measures Indigo had insisted upon. But the person who crouched on the floor with his back to the couch, slowly rocking back and forth, was definitely not Indigo.

Well, he was sort of Indigo-shaped, Sherlock decided, slowly sitting up in bed. He froze when the head turned towards him, eyes glittering in the moonlight like a wild animal, but the person didn’t seem bothered by him, and went back to watching the door.

“Indigo?” Sherlock ventured. It was hard to describe what he saw; the body language was just all wrong. The person turned to look at him again. “Indigo, are you alright?”

“Not him,” he said, and Sherlock was startled by how different the voice was, low and raspy.

Sherlock sat up a little more but stayed on the bed, not wanting to alarm this person who was, frankly, alarming _him_. When he zoned out Indigo didn’t generally move this much, or talk; so this was something new. “Where _is_ Indigo?” he asked evenly.

“Asleep.”

Sherlock glanced at the empty couch reflexively, even though he knew he was _talking_ to Indigo—well, sort of. “Who are _you_?” he tried, keeping his voice calm.

The person looked at him, almost like he was assessing Sherlock’s worth to know. Then his eyes went back to the door. “I am SleepingHim,” he responded finally.

Well that just didn’t make sense. “But you’re _not_ sleeping,” Sherlock pointed out, and SleepingHim glanced at him, like he just didn’t get it. Well, perhaps quibbling over nomenclature _was_ a little petty, when you were talking to someone who clearly wasn’t who they ought to be. “Okay,” Sherlock agreed quickly. “May I speak to Indigo, please?”

“No. Asleep.”

“Can I wake him up?” Sherlock suggested. Maybe this was some kind of active dreaming, like sleepwalking.

“No. Needs sleep,” SleepingHim denied.

“Why are _you_ awake, then?” Sherlock questioned, trying to sound casual. Perfectly normal conversation to have with your slave in the middle of the night.

“I must protect him, while he sleeps.”

“Protect Indigo?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock was starting to get the feeling that this was not like sleepwalking at all. “What are you protecting Indigo from?” he wanted to know.

SleepingHim’s eyes fixed on the door. “They come in the night, to hurt him. I stay awake, to protect him while he sleeps,” he explained. More or less.

“But you’re using Indigo’s body,” Sherlock pointed out, running through several scenarios in his mind. “How can he rest, while you’re awake?” SleepingHim glanced at Sherlock as if this was a very stupid question. He decided to set this point aside. “Am _I_ one of the people you’re protecting him from?” he asked curiously.

SleepingHim stopped rocking and gave him a long look, head cocked to the side as if he was listening to something. “No,” he finally said, rocking again. “We agree, you’re safe.”

The ‘we’ chilled Sherlock to the bone, negating the otherwise reassuring message. “Who’s ‘we’?” he asked, throat going dry.

“UnderHim, and him, and me.”

“UnderHim?” Sherlock seized. “Who’s UnderHim?”

There were suddenly voices in the hallway, faint, and SleepingHim sprang to his feet, holding a hand up to Sherlock to shush him. He pressed his ear against the door, then dropped to the floor to peer through the sliver of light at the bottom of the door. The voices faded, and after a long moment SleepingHim seemed satisfied they were gone.

Then he walked to the window and scanned the grounds below them, giving Sherlock a better look at his face. He was vigilant, single-minded—Indigo could be that way, too, of course, but there was just something very… not-Indigo about him.

“UnderHim said I was needed,” SleepingHim said suddenly, resuming his position facing the door. Sherlock had almost forgotten the question he’d asked.

“Does Indigo know you exist?” Sherlock posed. “Does he talk to you?”

“UnderHim talks to me,” SleepingHim seemed to correct. “No one talks to _him_ ”—Sherlock understood this to mean Indigo—“but UnderHim listens.”

Multiple personality disorder. That had to be it. At least two alternate personalities, this one a guard and the other some kind of interface. Was that normal? Well, obviously it wasn’t _normal_ , but was it typical of this disorder? Sherlock had never had cause to study it before, and his eyes strayed to his phone and that source of all knowledge, the Internet. Then he glanced back at SleepingHim and he felt a moral crisis building.

“Um, SleepingHim—“ He turned his owlish gaze on Sherlock. “You know, that position is hard on Indigo’s body,” he suggested. “Could you come back to bed and lie down?”

“No. Must watch.”

Right, of course, that was an obvious one, Sherlock supposed. “Can I bring you a blanket?”

“Not cold.”

“Can I come sit by you?”

SleepingHim paused to consider this. “Don’t touch,” he warned, which seemed to permit greater proximity, and Sherlock slipped carefully off the bed, tugging a blanket around his shoulders. He sat down next to SleepingHim, but not touching him.

“Who comes in the night to hurt Indigo?” Sherlock asked him, intent on getting some answers. “People in this house, when he was a slave here?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock sighed heavily and leaned his head back against the couch. “I wish I hadn’t had to bring him back here,” he admitted. “I knew it was going to upset him, just based on what little he’d told me about Simmerson, but, G-d, I did not know about _this_.” He turned to SleepingHim. “Do you understand why we’re here?” he questioned.

“Don’t care,” SleepingHim replied. “UnderHim said I was needed.”

“Well, not really,” Sherlock insisted. “I’m going to protect Indigo. I’m not going to let anything happen to him.”

“We agree, you’re safe,” SleepingHim repeated. Obviously not needed for his conversational skills.

“Can I talk to UnderHim?” Sherlock tried.

SleepingHim paused as if asking and listening to the reply. “He says no,” he finally conveyed. “I am needed now.”

“SleepingHim, the door is locked and barricaded, and _I’m_ here,” Sherlock emphasized. “Indigo is safe now.”

“It’s not safe here,” SleepingHim countered, with finality.

“Okay,” Sherlock conceded, seeing no way around it. “You don’t want a blanket?”

“No.”

Sherlock sat back and tried to decide what else he needed to know, that this particular personality could tell him. His focus seemed narrow. “Have you been needed since I bought Indigo?” he asked.

“No.”

Okay, that seemed good. “Were you needed before Indigo first came to this house?”

Footsteps in the hallway, and SleepingHim froze to listen. His heightened sense of security—or paranoia—was beginning to rub off on Sherlock, who knew logically that it was just another guest turning in late; but he tensed anyway, until the sound receded and vanished behind a door.

“Yes,” SleepingHim finally said, and Sherlock thought back to his question.

“Before he became a slave?”

“Yes.”

Battlefield trauma could be severe, witness the psychosomatic limp Indigo had had for years—the man’s brain was apparently scrambled eggs at this point. “When were you first needed?”

“When UnderHim first told me.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes—should have known he wasn’t going to pop out with an exact date. He squirmed uncomfortably on the floor, adjusting his blanket around his shoulders. “Before Indigo was in the Army?” he continued, determined to pinpoint it.

“Yes.”

This answer surprised Sherlock; then he realized guiltily that he knew almost nothing about Indigo’s early life. He’d never asked, and Indigo had never volunteered. “Before he went to uni?”

“Yes.”

“Did you protect Indigo when he was a child?” He gestured with his hand to a height of roughly three feet, not sure how literally the question would be taken.

SleepingHim took his time considering this. “UnderHim says, we protect him from those who hurt him in the night,” he answered, “and from bad memories.”

“I see,” Sherlock replied slowly. He inferred childhood trauma from that response, something that Indigo wouldn’t necessarily even remember if asked. Sherlock often deleted information he found unnecessary, experiences too, though certainly some people would disagree with his choices. He tried to evaluate each situation for what it could teach him, before he decided on deletion; sometimes he kept the abstract lesson, and not the painful details. His childhood was especially hazy. He’d never developed alternate personalities to deal with it, though. As far as he knew, anyway.

“Thank you,” he said suddenly. “For protecting Indigo.”

“We are needed,” SleepingHim noted simply. He turned to look at Sherlock. “We are needed less now,” he added, and Sherlock’s breath caught as he took that to mean Indigo felt safe with him. Of course, SleepingHim had already said that, and the fact that he was even _talking_ to SleepingHim meant Sherlock had failed on some level, bringing Indigo back to this place. But in some strange way it still seemed like a vote of confidence, and Sherlock nodded.

“Can I lie down here, and go to sleep?” he checked, hoping it would encourage the other man to do the same.

“Don’t touch,” SleepingHim reminded, and Sherlock was careful to stretch out away from him.

“If you get tired or cold, you can share my blanket,” Sherlock assured him. He wasn’t certain how much actual sleep _he_ would get, but he needed to _think_. “SleepingHim,” he added, one last question, “were you present when Simmerson died?”

“No.”

“Was Indigo?”

“Don’t know.”

“Are you capable of lying to me?” Sherlock checked curiously.

“Don’t know.”

Well, that seemed honest enough, Sherlock decided, and began enlarging the room in his mind palace devoted to Indigo.

**

Sherlock woke in the morning to someone gently rocking him and saying his name. He winced as he came to, stiff from lying on the floor for several hours. Indigo was in his arms under the blanket, looking confused. “Sherlock, why are we on the floor?” he asked reasonably.

Sherlock blinked for a moment, then last night’s curious encounter came flooding back and he jumped to his feet, racing to snatch his phone off the nightstand and start researching. “You don’t remember?” he checked, though that seemed obvious.

Indigo looked around at where they’d been sprawled on the floor as though it might come back to him at any moment, and he stood stiffly when it didn’t. “No,” he confirmed. “What happened?”

Sherlock was already skimming a long article he’d found on _dissociative identity disorder_ , the preferred term these days, and it was a moment before he looked up into Indigo’s questioning face. “Hmm? Oh. Um, I’m going to have to table that question for right now,” he decided. He wanted to have more facts to present Indigo with when he finally discussed this with him.

“Did I have a nightmare?” Indigo guessed.

“Tabled!” Sherlock reminded him, and he rolled his eyes. “Come on, we have to shower and get down to breakfast. Entirely too much eating is done in this household!” he added with a grumble.

“Yes, I’ve always thought so,” Indigo agreed dryly. Fortunately he was used to odd behavior from Sherlock, and didn’t question him further.

**

It was late afternoon before Sherlock and Indigo were alone for any substantial length of time—which didn’t seem important to Indigo, he’d felt unpleasantly alone all day as Sherlock buried himself in researching something online, squinting at his phone every moment he could. They came back to their room for a break before dinner and Indigo kicked off his shoes and curled up in bed with his back to the room, trying to zone out for a while.

He’d spent a lot of time zoned out over the last couple days, too much, and he was starting to feel disjointed from what happened around him—a familiar but unwelcome feeling in this house. Sherlock was—well, there was no doubt he was the best master Indigo had ever had, and possible his best friend _ever_ ; but he was hardly perfect in either department, and when he got involved in something he could be quite oblivious to everything around him.

Ironically like Indigo zoning out, in fact. So perhaps it was fitting they were both oblivious in the same room together.

Sherlock looked up and realized he’d put himself on the couch, and that Indigo was in bed. It wasn’t time for bed, was it? No, it was still light out, and he didn’t recall sitting through the ghastly ritual of supper. Maybe he would skip it tonight.

“Indigo.” No answer. Sherlock watched him for a moment to see if someone else had emerged, but no, Indigo was likely daydreaming or outright asleep. Would SleepingHim show up if it was still light out, Sherlock wondered idly. Only if UnderHim found it necessary, he supposed—the _alters_ , as they were generally known, were indeed associated with severe trauma, the brain compartmentalizing memories, personality traits, even skills rather than allowing them to integrate and continue traumatizing the individual. Fascinating stuff, really.

“Indigo,” Sherlock said more loudly. Nothing. He texted the other man and the buzzing of his phone on the nightstand near his head finally got his attention. Indigo read the text, heaved an enormous sigh, and foolishly tried to continue ignoring Sherlock. “Indigo,” he chided. “Come over here, I want to talk to you.”

“Can it wait?” Indigo asked, not turning around. “I’m really tired.”

“No, it’s important. Come here.”

For a moment Sherlock thought he wouldn’t do it, but finally Indigo pushed himself up and off the bed and trudged over to sit on the other end of the couch, curled up against the back like he might return to sleep. “What,” he asked with the least possible amount of enthusiasm.

Sherlock had mostly concentrated on getting the basic facts down, and hadn’t worked much on his delivery; so he hesitated, and saw Indigo start to drift away again. “Hey,” he said, gently touching his cheek. “This is important.”

Indigo tried to perk up a bit. “Is it about the investigation?” he asked.

“Mmm, tangentially,” Sherlock hedged. “When you were a slave here, you blacked out a lot, didn’t you?” he predicted.

“Well, I don’t know if I’d say ‘blacked out,’” Indigo countered. “I thought we liked to call it ‘zoning out’ or something.”

“I mean something more extreme,” Sherlock tried to explain. “You wake up somewhere you don’t remember going to, and it’s obvious something happened to you that you _ought_ to remember, but don’t.”

He could see from Indigo’s expression what the answer was, and that he didn’t like recalling even what bits he could. “Yes, I suppose,” he agreed quietly.

“And furthermore,” Sherlock continued, “evidence suggests you were actively _doing_ things you can’t remember. People reference conversations you don’t remember having with them, for example.” He did not by any means think SleepingHim was the only alter active here. “Or punish you for things you don’t remember doing.”

This answer was also yes, he could see. “Why are you asking me these questions, Sherlock?” Indigo posed in return. He clearly didn’t see their usefulness.

Sherlock took a breath. “Last night I woke up and you were crouching on the floor behind the couch, watching the door,” he told Indigo, who frowned at him. “I spoke to you, and you said your name _wasn’t_ Indigo.”

This was obviously an unsettling opener. “So I _did_ have a nightmare,” Indigo assumed, a bit willfully Sherlock thought. “I don’t remember sleepwalking or talking in my sleep before, though.”

Sherlock shook his head. “No, that’s not it. You were exhibiting an alternate personality,” he stated. “I think you have dissociative identity disorder, that’s what they call multiple personality—“

“Sherlock,” Indigo interrupted, exasperated. “Honestly, I’m sure I was just dreaming. I’m sorry it bothered you.”

“You were _not_ dreaming, you were perfectly lucid and responsive to your environment,” Sherlock insisted. “But your body language and voice were completely different, and you identified yourself as someone else!” His own exasperation rose as he saw Indigo was not taking this seriously. “Those are classic symptoms of—“

He was waving his phone around a little too obviously. “Oh, you’ve read an article on Wikipedia and diagnosed me, have you?” Indigo accused in a not-very-subservient tone. He sometimes forgot that when he got really irritated.

“Well of course I _started_ there, but I’ve consulted a great deal of primary literature as well—“

Indigo sprang from the couch, turning his back on Sherlock. “It was just a dream, a bad dream—“

“Where you _denied_ that you were Indigo when I asked?” Sherlock shot back.

“I’m not—“ He caught himself and rephrased, trying to make Sherlock understand. “I wasn’t born with that name, I’ve had a lot of different names,” he pointed out. “I had a different name when I lived here—“

“Were you ever called SleepingHim?”

Indigo was silent, as Sherlock knew he had to be. “What?”

“SleepingHim,” Sherlock repeated. “Him like he, him, his. That’s who you said you were.”

This was clearly a surprise to Indigo. But he was quick to rationalize it. “Well—I must’ve meant—just that—“

“You said your name was SleepingHim and your job was to protect Indigo from people who would come in the night to hurt him.” Sherlock didn’t want to sound smug, but he trusted Indigo was seeing his point now.

For a moment the other man just stared at him, unable to make sense of this information. Then his expression hardened. “Sherlock, are you just messing with me?” he demanded. “Because this is _really_ not the time to exper—“

Sherlock was not offended by this suggestion. “No,” he promised. “Come here.” Indigo returned readily to the couch, close enough that Sherlock could put his arm around him. “I’m not messing with you. SleepingHim said he’d been around protecting you since before you went to uni,” he revealed. “He’s not really very informative, seems to have a relative rather than linear sense of time—“

“Oh G-d,” Indigo interrupted. “Have you—have you been irritating my alternate personality, too?” There was little humor in his tone.

“’Too’?” Sherlock repeated with a frown. “I was merely investigating him. It was rather unsettling, you know, to wake up in the middle of the night and find a stranger in the room.”

“Well it’s rather unsettling to hear there’s a stranger _inside_ me!” Indigo shot back, getting upset.

Sherlock tightened his arm around him to keep him close. “More than one, actually,” he corrected quickly. “Calm down, it’s alright—“

“It’s very _far_ from alright!” Indigo protested in agitation. “Wait—what do you mean, more than one?”

“Well, there’s at least two that I’ve discovered so far,” Sherlock shared, perhaps a bit too eagerly. “There’s SleepingHim, and then there’s UnderHim, who seems to be a sort of director, telling Sleeping—“

“UnderHim?” Indigo interrupted in confused misery.

“Yes, UnderHim, like undershirt,” Sherlock clarified. “He seems to know what’s going on around you and what your thoughts are, and he sends SleepingHim out when he thinks it’s necessary to protect you. I assume there are other alters he directs as well, though I haven’t met them yet. I haven’t met UnderHim yet, actually—“ He broke off as Indigo’s attention seemed dubious. “Indigo?” The other man looked at him. “Do you believe me?” he checked.

“I-I believe that _you_ believe,” Indigo conceded. He didn’t seem to know what else to say. “I just…”

Sherlock tried to remember that Indigo liked physical affection and encouraged him to shift around so he was leaning more against Sherlock. “I think the alters were very active when you lived here,” he went on quietly. “When one of them is active, you won’t remember anything that happened then. They take over and deal with a bad situation for you, and keep the memories locked away.”

“That—G-d, yeah, that does… fit,” Indigo admitted with great reluctance. “Sometimes people would talk about things I’d—that they said I’d done, that I didn’t remember doing, that I didn’t think… I _could_ do…” He trailed off miserably and Sherlock nuzzled his temple to encourage him. “I thought—slaves can be cruel to each other sometimes, and masters—“ You couldn’t rely on them to tell you the truth either, he seemed to suggest. “I don’t—it seems very strange,” he concluded, now swinging away from accepting it.

Sherlock tried to be understanding, though that was frankly tedious. “Well, SleepingHim and presumably UnderHim have been around for a long time, protecting you,” he reiterated. “Possibly starting in childhood. What do you remember about that?”

Indigo tensed in his arms, in a way he hadn’t earlier. “I don’t like to talk about it,” he said quickly. “It wasn’t very good.”

“I think,” Sherlock proclaimed, “you don’t actually remember very much about your childhood. You have a vague sense it was unpleasant, but you can’t recall anything specific.”

“Sherlock, I don’t actually want to try,” Indigo replied, disappointingly.

“I’m thinking of hypnotizing you,” Sherlock shared, definitely too eagerly. “I might be able to talk to other alters, find out what exactly—“

Indigo pulled away suddenly and stood again, his body language defense. “Sherlock, please don’t experiment on me, not when I’m here in this house, what I _do_ remember is already too—“ He broke off abruptly and turned away.

“Indigo?” Sherlock asked in alarm. He wondered with a stab of horror if Indigo was going to cry and jumped to his feet, eager to prevent that. Carefully he came up behind the other man and put his hands on his shoulders. “It’s really alright, Indigo,” he tried to tell him.

“It’s _not_ ,” Indigo insisted, his voice thick. “You’re telling me—I’m _actually_ crazy—“

“You’re not—Well, alright, in conventional usage you might be crazy,” Sherlock allowed, and Indigo coughed out a dry laugh. “But the alters have been protecting you! For years! As best they can, anyway. Oh, _and_ ,” he added in an upbeat tone, “SleepingHim says he at least hasn’t been needed since I bought you, and they consider me safe! He’s not protecting you from _me_ , in other words. And I certainly don’t recall any time when you were acting like someone else,” he decided thoughtfully. “Have you had any black outs since I bought you? Where I mention something you’ve said or done, and you don’t remember it?”

Indigo turned in his arms with a grim smirk. “No, usually it’s the other way around,” he pointed out. “ _You_ don’t remember what _I_ say or do.”

“Well, you expect complex conversation when I’m _busy_ ,” Sherlock complained. He slipped his arms around Indigo’s waist. “But there, your other personalities like me, too,” he emphasized happily. “It’s just that being here again has triggered them. Even though I explained to SleepingHim that _I_ was going to protect you now. He’s very single-minded.”

“G-d,” Indigo sighed, resting his head on Sherlock’s shoulder. “Is this what you’ve been reading about all day?” he asked after a moment.

He felt Sherlock nod. “I wanted more facts before I told you,” he explained. “And, it is _possible_ it’s related to Simmerson’s death, if one of your alters was there that night instead of you.”

“If it was one of my… alters instead of me”—and Indigo had never stated definitively whether he was actually present at Simmerson’s death or not—“it was still technically _me_.”

“Well, not really—“

“I mean I would still go to jail, or a high-security mental hospital,” Indigo judged. “If it was this SleepingHim or whatever.”

Sherlock pulled him closer. “That’s not going to happen,” he stated, and that _was_ definitive. “As far as I’m concerned Simmerson got what was coming to him, and I’m not going to let you get into trouble for it. Whatever really happened.”

“You might not want to know,” Indigo whispered in his ear, and Sherlock jerked back suddenly.

“What?” he demanded.

“What?” Indigo repeated in confusion.

“What did you just say?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Indigo replied. He smiled a little. “You just said it didn’t matter what happened, you weren’t going to let me get in trouble.” He seemed pleased with this sentiment, but Sherlock gave him a narrow look.

“You said, I might not want to _know_ what happened,” Sherlock repeated suspiciously.

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did. Well, your _body_ did…” It didn’t seem like something SleepingHim would say, Sherlock decided thoughtfully.

Indigo gave him a long look. “Are we sure _I’m_ the one having mental problems?” he asked delicately, and Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“If I encounter an alter again, do I have your permission to film it?” he inquired.

Indigo’s hand went reflexively to his collar, because he _did_ sometimes remember he was a slave. “You don’t actually need my permission,” he noted.

“Well, I want it,” Sherlock declared. “I mean, if it’s alright.”

Indigo smiled a little. “Well, okay,” he agreed, then frowned when Sherlock was a little too excited about this idea. “But _no_ hypnotizing me, okay? You’ll botch it somehow and I’ll be clucking like a chicken whenever the phone rings.”

Sherlock blinked at him. “What purpose would that serve?” he wanted to know.

Indigo shook his head. “Never mind. Can we—I’m getting hungry,” he admitted. “But I don’t really want to go down for supper.”

“Me neither,” Sherlock agreed heartily. “We’ll send for a tray and eat here. I have a lot more research to do.” Indigo sighed.

**

Indigo had trouble falling asleep that night, knowing he might awaken and do things in the identity of another person—that wasn’t exactly soothing to think about. Besides which Sherlock was eagerly hoping for the same thing, and all of Indigo’s jokes about waiting to spy Father Christmas went unappreciated.

When Sherlock awakened later his first thought was of annoyance that he’d fallen asleep, and his second thought was to look around excitedly for Indigo. As he had hoped, Indigo wasn’t there—but SleepingHim was. Though Sherlock wasn’t expecting to see him sitting at the foot of the bed, leaning against the footboard and staring at him.

“J---s,” Sherlock breathed, waiting for his heart to calm down.

“No. SleepingHim,” the other man corrected flatly.

Sherlock couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “Why are you sitting on the bed tonight?” he asked, casually reaching for his phone. “Don’t you need to watch the door?”

“I can see the door,” SleepingHim pointed out. “UnderHim says, that position was hard on the body.”

Sherlock frowned. “ _I_ said that,” he reminded him.

SleepingHim blinked at him. “UnderHim agrees,” he replied simply, clearly considering him the highest authority.

Sherlock decided to move on. “SleepingHim, can I film you?” He indicated his phone. “I want Indigo to see you.”

SleepingHim cocked his head to the side slightly. “UnderHim says yes,” he conveyed.

“Okay,” Sherlock acknowledged with uncertainty. “And what do _you_ say?”

“Don’t care.”

“Alright.” Everything Sherlock had read suggested it was a good idea to respect the autonomy of each alter, limited though it may be, and that they could have very different opinions on the same topic. He pushed the record button on the phone and aimed the camera at the man sitting on the bed across from him. “Can you tell me your name?” he began.

“Yes.”

Sherlock waited. “You’re very literal,” he prompted pointedly.

“I am SleepingHim,” he finally answered. “I protect _him_ while he sleeps, from those who come to hurt him in the night.”

Sherlock was impressed. “Thank you, that was very complete.”

“UnderHim said to say,” SleepingHim admitted. “So _he_ will know.”

“ _He_ being Indigo?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re _not_ Indigo.”

“No.”

“I told Indigo I met you last night,” Sherlock said. “Did you know that?”

“UnderHim said.”

“And how do you feel about Indigo finally knowing about you?” Sherlock probed.

“Don’t care,” SleepingHim asserted. “I am needed. I come when I am needed.”

“And how does UnderHim feel about it?”

There was a pause. “UnderHim says, it was inevitable.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, Sherlock noted. “Can I speak to UnderHim?” he asked, hoping to cut out the middleman.

“He says no,” SleepingHim denied. “I am needed now.”

“Well, can you tell him that I want to protect Indigo, too,” Sherlock tried to explain, “and I thought it was in Indigo’s best interest to tell him?” The statement might be too complex for this one, he feared.

Instead SleepingHim replied simply, “He knows.”

“Okay,” Sherlock nodded. “Who is UnderHim? What’s his role in all this?”

Before SleepingHim could answer there were voices in the hall—people here kept odd hours—and he sprang from the bed to press himself warily against the door. Sherlock followed him with the camera.

The voices came closer. “That’s just Sir James,” Sherlock hissed, and SleepingHim held up his hand to shush him. “He’s drunk again, probably doesn’t know—“ SleepingHim gave Sherlock a very cold stare and snapped his fingers, a clear order to shut up.

Sir James laughed unsteadily just outside their door and the knob rattled. SleepingHim positioned himself to spring, in case the intoxicated man managed to get through the lock _and_ the chair blocking the door. The slave who was helping Sir James redirected him towards his own room, and after a moment there was silence. After another few moments SleepingHim returned to the bed.

“I told you, it was just Sir James drunk,” Sherlock couldn’t help saying. “We’re safe in here, no one’s going to hurt us.”

“I am needed to guard _him_ ,” SleepingHim countered in what Sherlock felt was a slightly peeved tone. “Don’t interfere.”

“Sorry,” Sherlock replied, unable to prevent the sarcasm from coming through. “Are you ready to continue?”

“UnderHim listens to all, tells us when we’re needed,” SleepingHim conveyed by way of reply, remembering the question before Sherlock did.

Sherlock seized on his words. “Us? So there’s more alters than you and UnderHim?” He’d suspected as much, but the possibility of confirmation excited him.

However, SleepingHim kept quiet, and Sherlock waited impatiently for him to process whatever he was being told. “UnderHim says not to tell you anything,” he finally revealed.

Sherlock couldn’t hide his disappointment. “About anything?” Maybe he’d offended UnderHim somehow. He did it often enough to sane people.

“About the others,” SleepingHim clarified, which at least suggested there _were_ others.

But Sherlock pushed, because he always pushed. “Could I talk to one of the others?” SleepingHim looked at him patronizingly. “Well, you can’t just tell me—and Indigo—there are others, and not say anything else,” he insisted.

“UnderHim says, you may wish you didn’t meet them,” SleepingHim passed on warningly. “But maybe if _he_ goes to familiar places, they will be needed.”

Okay, Sherlock could work with that. His plan for the morning was already taking shape. “Well, let’s talk about _you_ ,” he decided, pulling a blanket over himself. SleepingHim cocked his head to the side, clearly finding this a strange idea. Maybe it would prove fruitless. “You protect Indigo while he sleeps,” Sherlock reiterated. “Oh, you’re not protecting him from _me_ , right?” he suddenly thought to add, wanting to get this on the record.

“No. We agree, you’re safe.”

“Okay. How long have you been protecting Indigo?”

“Since before he went to uni,” SleepingHim replied promptly.

“Did UnderHim tell you that?” Sherlock guessed of the unusually specific answer.

“No. Discussed last night,” SleepingHim corrected, as though this should be obvious.

“You and I discussed it?”

“Yes. Don’t you remember?” SleepingHim asked with concern.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Yes, _I_ remember,” he insisted. “I was just checking that _you_ remembered.”

“Of course.”

“Well, it’s hard to know what assumptions I should make,” Sherlock started to explain, and stopped when he saw SleepingHim had no interest in this. “Alright, you’ve been protecting Indigo since he was young,” Sherlock allowed. “Before he was a teenager?”

“Yes.”

“Before he was… eight?”

“Don’t know.”

“Oh, come on, SleepingHim, you were doing so well,” Sherlock chided. This had no effect on the other man. “Who, specifically, have you protected Indigo from?”

“Names aren’t needed,” SleepingHim claimed, but Sherlock felt this was evasive. “They come to hurt him, I protect him.”

“Okay, so you’ve actually physically defended Indigo before,” Sherlock wanted to know. “You’ve hit people or whatever. Good for you, by the way,” he added sincerely.

“Yes.”

“Then in the morning, what happens?” Sherlock pressed. “Doesn’t Indigo get into trouble?” He wouldn’t be surprised if SleepingHim said he didn’t know.

But instead his expression was thoughtful. “UnderHim says, those who hurt in the night, pretend it didn’t happen in the morning,” he relayed. “But now they know _he_ is protected.”

“Hmm. I see.” Sherlock had been doing fairly well so far, he thought—maintaining a clinical detachment from a case was not usually difficult for him, and often the source of much chastising by others, in fact. But the more he tried to picture what Indigo had been subjected to, the angrier he became. Obviously he was no abolitionist, and there were people he knew who would struggle to classify him as a good human being. But he did understand there were right and wrong ways to treat people, especially people who had very little protection from you under the law. It had never really hit home before, though.

SleepingHim regarded him patiently, waiting for the next question, then abruptly slipped from the bed and went to the window. “There’s a dog,” he announced.

“Outside?”

“It patrols at night,” he confirmed. “If we must escape, it may give chase.”

Sherlock suddenly felt the dog was the one at a disadvantage here. “We won’t have to escape in the night,” he promised. “Have you escaped in the night before?”

“A little,” SleepingHim admitted, which didn’t seem quite grammatically sound to Sherlock. He returned to the bed and tugged on a blanket, draping it loosely over himself. “Escape is not really my purpose. Defense is my purpose.”

“Were you needed when Indigo was in the Army?” Sherlock asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, tell me about a time when you were needed.”

SleepingHim hesitated. “I kept watch, two came to hurt him, they did not take me by surprise, I defended him, they left,” he summarized.

“SleepingHim,” Sherlock sighed in disappointment.

“UnderHim says, our existence keeps _him_ from knowing about bad things,” SleepingHim noted. “Bad things _you_ would tell him.”

“Only to _help_ Indigo,” Sherlock argued. “When things first happened, he couldn’t deal with them, he was just a child.” He paused a moment to see if SleepingHim would contradict him. “So you helped him, allowed him to function. But now he’s an adult and he’s safe, the things in his past can’t hurt him. He can come to terms with them.” That was the argument put forward in the research he’d read, anyway.

SleepingHim looked at him thoughtfully. “Is he safe now?” he asked simply.

“Yes, of course, I keep telling you—“ He paused as SleepingHim blinked at him. “That’s not what you’re asking,” Sherlock decided.

“He was not safe as a child,” SleepingHim noted. “He was not safe in the Army. He was not safe as a slave in many houses. He was not safe on the street.”

“Wait, when was Indigo on the street?” Sherlock interrupted in confusion.

“Is he safe now?” SleepingHim repeated instead. He was not accusatory, more philosophical, and waited while Sherlock considered this.

“I do have a risky profession,” he was forced to admit. “There are dangerous people who dislike me.” That was putting it mildly. “But,” he went on quickly, “you said you hadn’t been needed since I bought Indigo. Danger, _that_ kind of danger, isn’t a problem, he handles it well.” He paused a moment, remembering the cabbie Indigo had killed to save him, when they barely knew each other. He wondered if SleepingHim knew about that—only if UnderHim had told him, probably. He decided to avoid mentioning it on video, just in case.

“Emotional danger. Personal danger, someone targeting him specifically, someone who ought to be helping or taking care of him,” Sherlock rattled off. “You _know_ he’s safe from that with me.” He’d been saying it often enough.

“But how long will he be with you?”

Sherlock stared at him for a moment. “I’m not—I’m not going to sell Indigo,” he insisted. The thought had never crossed his mind. He was used to him now, he cared about him. Sherlock wasn’t going to let him go.

“So, you say he is safe now forever,” SleepingHim checked, “so now he can remember bad things?”

Sherlock made a face at him. “You know, it sounds _stupid_ when you put it that way,” he accused peevishly. SleepingHim shrugged. “I just think—he ought to _know_. If he wants.”

“UnderHim says _you_ want to know,” SleepingHim replied, his tone almost teasing. “You want to know _everything_.”

“Well, not _everything_ ,” Sherlock corrected. “Many things are irrelevant. Almost everything on the telly, for example. There are entire scientific disciplines that are pointless, like ecology, much of astronomy and physics, agronomy, nearly all of so-called history and literature, much of the arts is tedious—“ He realized he was monologuing again, as Indigo called it, when he was supposed to be getting information from someone _else_. “Um, do you have any favorite books or music?” he asked, feeling quite awkward.

The question seemed to knock SleepingHim for a loop as well. “That is not my purpose,” he answered cautiously.

“Right, of course,” Sherlock agreed quickly. “You’re waiting in the dark, listening for threats, you’re not going to be reading a book.”

“ _He_ likes to read, UnderHim says,” SleepingHim offered. “Sometimes I need information he’s read. Maps, fighting techniques.”

“Naturally.” Sherlock appreciated that he was _trying_ to answer the question, anyway. “Very sound tactic.”

“I like a song,” SleepingHim added suddenly, before Sherlock could move away from the dead-end topic. He sounded like he was confessing a secret, which considering the actual secrets he _wouldn’t_ reveal…

“Which song?” Sherlock asked, with some disbelief. SleepingHim began to hum it and Sherlock’s confusion only grew. “Vivaldi, _Spring_ ,” he identified. “Where did you hear that?”

“You play it sometimes, at night,” SleepingHim replied, almost shyly, and Sherlock found himself smiling a little as he remembered working through the _Seasons_ on his violin during knotty cases.

“I thought you’d never been present since I bought Indigo,” he checked, and SleepingHim shrugged, unconcerned with the metaphysics of it.

“Sometimes UnderHim lets us listen,” he explained. “We like it.”

“Well… Thank you.” Sherlock was not sure what else to say to that. It was flattering, certainly, to know that even Indigo’s alternate personalities seemed to be aware of, and even fond of, him. It would be rather awkward if the opposite was the case. “So what else do you like to do?” he tried. “Do you… have any hobbies?” SleepingHim looked like he really _wanted_ to answer, but had no idea how to. “Er, when you’re not needed, what’s that like? Are you aware of what’s happening to Indigo? Do you chat with the other alters?”

“UnderHim tells me what I need to know,” SleepingHim attempted to explain. “Sometimes extra things. Sometimes UnderHim lets me listen.”

“To me playing the violin.”

“Or to those who might be a threat later,” he added.

“Hmm, that’s interesting,” Sherlock decided. “So if someone was making threats against Indigo, you might be aware of it, even though Indigo is still fully present, so you can see what you might be up against in the night.”

“Yes.”

“Can I just say,” Sherlock went on quickly, “that I’m not entirely confident of your ability to guard Indigo.” SleepingHim raised an eyebrow as if to say, there better be more to that inflammatory statement. “Because the last two nights, you’ve spent more time talking to _me_ , than being hyper-vigilant for threats. Of course, it’s useful for me to talk to you,” he conceded, “but it seems like you might be allowing me to distract you from your duties.” And that would not do, not if his duty was protecting Indigo.

Irritatingly, SleepingHim looked vaguely amused by his serious complaint. “ _You_ say it’s safe here,” he tossed back, “but yet you complain I’m not alert enough?”

“If you weren’t needed, you’d leave and Indigo would come back,” Sherlock argued logically. “You’re here, so you must be needed. If you’re needed, there must be a threat. If there’s a threat, you should be telling me to shut up while you deal with it.” The alter had demonstrated he was capable of doing that quite well when there were voices in the corridor.

There was a long pause, during which Sherlock refused to be unnerved by the expression on SleepingHim’s face, so like Indigo and yet not. “UnderHim says,” he finally answered, “guarding _him_ while he sleeps is not my only purpose.”

“What are your other purposes?” Sherlock quizzed. “Defending Indigo if he’s actually attacked, assessing threats, some escaping—“

“I have a new purpose,” SleepingHim announced. “To talk to you.”

Sherlock blinked at him. “Talking to me? That’s one of your jobs now?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Just now, UnderHim said,” SleepingHim shrugged.

“Why _you_?” Sherlock had to ask.

“We met first. Also, I am…” SleepingHim trailed off as if not sure how to explain it. “I am good to talk to.” He seemed satisfied with this description, but Sherlock wasn’t.

“What do you mean?” He could think of several traits SleepingHim lacked that he would prefer in a conversational partner.

“I am patient,” SleepingHim decided. Sherlock wasn’t clear if this was supposed to answer his question or not, and if so, if the idea of patience being a necessary virtue when talking to Sherlock was flattering or not. “I can wait all night, still and silent. Others get impatient.”

“The other alters?”

“They don’t wait as long.” SleepingHim sounded vaguely dismissive of them. “They are needed, then they go. I wait, I keep watch. I can talk and keep watch at the same time.”

“Have you done that often?” Sherlock asked curiously.

“No. We have never talked to anyone before,” SleepingHim admitted. “You are the first.”

Sherlock nodded as if this was only right. “Never? The alters have _never_ spoken to anyone before?”

“Not as ourselves,” SleepingHim confirmed. “No one noticed. No one cared.”

“I care.”

“Yes.”

“Well, if your job is to talk to me,” Sherlock persisted, “why aren’t you allowed to tell me everything I want to know?”

A ghostly smile flickered across SleepingHim’s face. “It’s not you who shouldn’t know,” he corrected mysteriously.

“You mean Indigo,” Sherlock surmised. “He’ll see this video, or I’ll tell him, and you don’t think he’s ready for the truth yet.”

“I don’t care,” SleepingHim countered.

“Well, UnderHim.”

“He agrees,” SleepingHim nodded. “He isn’t ready.”

Sherlock sighed as the conversation went around in circles. “Can you tell me—“

There were noises out in the hall and SleepingHim was off the bed in a shot, leaning against the door. After a moment Sherlock realized it was just a couple too amorous to make it to their room and rolled his eyes. SleepingHim didn’t turn off his threat-meter, though. Sherlock made a little sound to get his attention, not wanting to be accused of interfering again, but SleepingHim waved at him to hush.

Finally Sherlock left the bed and walked over to him, trying to hold the camera phone steady. “Honestly, don’t you know what that is?” he complained. “Definitely not a threat to—“

“Bad sounds, bad sounds,” SleepingHim warned, listening closely.

“They’re not bad, they’re enjoying themselves,” Sherlock pointed out. The woman of the pair gave an especially breathy moan. “Okay, she’s faking it,” he conceded. “Wait, is that what you’re worried about?” he asked suddenly.

The pair finally decided to take their activities away to their well-insulated bedroom. “Most likely a house slave and one of the guests, possibly Robert Simmerson,” Sherlock judged. “Typical duty for house slaves, entertaining a guest sexually. They’re expected to act like they enjoy it, even if they don’t.” Frankly it was not something Sherlock had thought much about before. He tended to ignore anyone who didn’t meet his needs at the moment, slave _or_ free, and at least until he acquired Indigo, most of his body’s needs he considered a distraction from his mental focus.

He looked at SleepingHim, still listening tensely at the door. “Are you worried about someone trying to—rape Indigo in the night? Have you defended him against that, specifically?”

“People abuse bodies however they want,” SleepingHim replied vaguely, which Sherlock took as a yes. “Sometimes it begins with pleasure and ends with pain.” He was biting his lower lip nervously, and Sherlock reached out to brush it with his fingers.

“Stop, you’ll hurt Indigo,” he warned gently.

SleepingHim pulled back. “Don’t touch,” he repeated, but with less force than before.

“Okay,” Sherlock agreed. He knew this was not Indigo, but the way SleepingHim was looking at him right now had a certain Indigo-esque quality, and of course there was his general physical appearance, which overall Sherlock found quite appealing… “You know I wouldn’t hurt Indigo, or you, or do something you didn’t like,” he said, not for the first time, but in a slightly different context now.

SleepingHim nodded, eyes locked on his. “We know.”

“Can we go back to bed now?” Sherlock suggested, and turned off the camera. “I’ll stop filming, and you can let Indigo sleep. Really, I mean.”

SleepingHim considered this. “I will go back to the bed,” he agreed. “You can sleep. I will let you know if there’s a threat.”

“Alright.” Sherlock did not think it likely he would be able to fall asleep, with so much new information churning through his mind; but he was not convinced SleepingHim’s nighttime awareness had no effect on Indigo, and wanted to encourage him back to sleep. He started to reach for SleepingHim’s hand, which was automatic behavior with Indigo, but caught himself in time. “Sorry.” The alter didn’t seem offended, however.

Sherlock slipped under the blankets and to his surprise found SleepingHim doing the same, albeit sitting up beside him to lean against the headboard. “You can’t see the door from that angle,” he pointed out.

“I will _listen_ for threats,” SleepingHim assured him, “if you are _quiet_.” Sherlock thought about arguing—they were _supposed_ to talk, he’d just said that—but realized it would be counterproductive to his immediate goals.

“Alright, I’ll be quiet,” he promised, and closed his eyes to think.

**

When Sherlock woke up the bed was empty and the sun was up. He didn’t see Indigo, or anyone similar, around but he heard the shower running in the bathroom.

And his mobile was missing from the nightstand.

Sherlock did a quick search to make sure it hadn’t just fallen on the floor, and chided himself for not saving the video file remotely, so he could still access it if something happened to his phone. Maybe SleepingHim, or another alter, decided they didn’t want Indigo knowing so much about them after all.

Or maybe he was reading too much into the missing phone.

Sherlock knocked on the bathroom door. “Indigo?” he called.

“In a minute,” Indigo replied, as if he was in the shower. But Sherlock could tell from the sound that he wasn’t, and opened the bathroom door anyway.

Indigo was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the tub, Sherlock’s mobile in his hand. His eyes flickered up at Sherlock, then went back to the screen.

“I wanted to be with you when you watched that,” Sherlock complained, coming to sit beside Indigo on the floor. He reached back to turn the unused shower off, so it wasn’t roaring in his ear.

“Then you should have passworded it,” Indigo informed him flatly.

Sherlock leaned over his shoulder and saw he was near the beginning of the recording. “How many times have you watched it?”

“Twice,” Indigo admitted. He seemed very tense, but in a way almost resigned as well. “Gets rather porny at the end,” he judged. “All that moaning and touching his lip and ‘let’s go back to bed.’”

Sherlock stared at him. “It wasn’t—I didn’t—“ he sputtered indignantly. Indigo’s sideways glance said he was being darkly humorous, perhaps the only reaction he could give other than crying. Though it looked like he’d done that, too. “Well, I wouldn’t be intimate with any of your alters unless it was alright with you,” Sherlock insisted.

There was a pause. “You’re waiting for me to say it would be alright,” Indigo predicted dryly, “and I’m not.”

“Oh.” This was somewhat disappointing, and Indigo rolled his eyes. “Well, you’re fascinating!” Sherlock tried to explain. “Each of them with a different worldview, a different personality—“

“It’d be like having five slaves in one,” Indigo agreed sarcastically. “Oh, I like this part, where he snaps his fingers at you, to get you to be quiet. That’s very sassy.”

“Yes, he _is_ a little hyper-vigilant,” Sherlock allowed.

“Oh, and then you chastise him later for _not_ being vigilant,” Indigo complained. “Maybe _you’ve_ got multiple personalities as well.” He sighed and looked away from the screen. “Maybe everyone does. Now I’ll be wondering, whenever I look at someone.”

Sherlock frowned at him. “I’m fairly certain yours results from severe trauma, starting in your childhood,” he pointed out.

“Yes, thank you,” Indigo replied sharply.

“Well, _I_ didn’t know you’d had severe trauma in childhood,” Sherlock protested. Indigo was acting like he was angry at Sherlock, but that made little sense; he’d agreed to be filmed, after all, and Sherlock had gotten very clear statements that _he_ was not the cause of any trauma. Emotions didn’t always make sense, though, he reasoned—in fact, almost never. Taking a chance Sherlock put his arm around Indigo’s tight shoulders, and the slave took a sharp breath, then leaned his head against Sherlock. They watched the video in silence.

“It’s so creepy,” Indigo judged after a moment.

“Oh, I’m becoming fond of him,” Sherlock decided.

“But just—having this whole other life happening, that I don’t know about,” Indigo tried to explain. “All this… _happening_ at night…”

“You don’t remember anyone ever attacking you at night?” Sherlock probed.

“I didn’t say that.” And that was all Indigo had to say on the matter.

“You must’ve awakened with scratches and bruises you didn’t remember getting,” Sherlock prodded anyway.

“So do you.”

Sherlock waved that off. “I can’t possibly be expected to notice every minor injury the body receives,” he claimed loftily. “ _You_ tend to notice them, though.”

“Rather obvious, when you’re bleeding through your shirt.”

“Let’s not make this about _me_ ,” Sherlock dismissed. “There must have been a lot of things that happened to you that you didn’t understand, people suddenly treating you differently.”

“We talked about that already,” Indigo reminded him abruptly.

“Well, now you know _why_ ,” was Sherlock’s point. “Someone was acting on your behalf in the night, protecting you.”

Indigo turned to him. “You think this is bloody marvelous, don’t you?” he accused.

“I _do_ ,” Sherlock agreed, not seeing what the problem was. “If you’ve got to go through something bad, I’d rather someone be protecting you.”

“But they’re not—What if they do something to protect me,” Indigo tried to explain, “that I wouldn’t _want_ them to do? What if they overreact, or-or make a choice I don’t agree with—“

Sherlock did not understand his objection. “What other choice would you make?” he demanded. “Unless you were going to kill yourself or something, which I heartily disapprove of.”

Indigo sighed. “You don’t—“ He stopped himself. “A lot of my life has been out of my control,” he said finally. “I thought I was at least in control of how I responded. And now I see that I’m not.”

“Well—“ Sherlock wasn’t sure what to say to that. He still thought it was amazing, though lack of control certainly frustrated him as well. “Maybe you have too many scruples,” he judged, and Indigo laughed suddenly, tipping his head onto Sherlock’ shoulder, his lips close to brushing his neck.

“It’s sweet how you keep saying I’m safe,” he told Sherlock, indicating the video. “This fellow is right, no one ever cared that much before, to even notice.”

“Well, most people are extremely unobservant, and eager to rationalize away inconsistencies,” Sherlock noted immodestly.

“Yeah.” He felt Indigo smiling against him. “Oh, here’s the part where you call my volatile alternate personality _stupid_ ,” he pointed out archly.

“You’re misinterpreting that—“

“Monologue!”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Well, do _you_ want to know what happened to you or not?” he asked. He’d been assuming yes, he realized, but maybe that was incorrect.

“Mmm, this bit is cute,” Indigo non-answered. It was the part where SleepingHim admitted to liking Sherlock’s violin playing. “What if…” His voice trailed off worriedly. “What if one of these… other people didn’t like you and—“

“Stop,” Sherlock commanded. “They’re not wild animals. You can see how close an eye UnderHim keeps on things, and he likes me fine.” He obviously had more confidence in this than Indigo did. “Besides, if something _did_ happen, it would be them, not you, who did it.”

“That’s a great comfort,” Indigo said, in a tone that made Sherlock think it wasn’t much comfort at all.

“I mean, _look_ , I’m giving your alters new purpose!” Sherlock boasted, gesturing at the mobile. “SleepingHim’s entire mission statement has been rewritten because of me.” Indigo groaned against him in protest. “Though I must admit I might’ve picked someone else to talk to.”

“Stop, you’ll hurt his feelings,” Indigo claimed.

“I want to talk to UnderHim, the one who runs the show.” He glanced at Indigo expectantly.

“I have no control over it,” Indigo reminded him. “See, very porny,” he added, as moans from the two people in the hall were heard in the background of the video.

“Hardly,” Sherlock insisted. “Okay, the way the video ends right then is perhaps slightly suggestive—“ Indigo snorted. Sherlock thought he was probably still being darkly humorous, though. With the video done the mobile went back to its usual display and Sherlock took it back, quickly emailing the video to himself as a backup. “Question,” he began.

“I bet I don’t remember,” Indigo predicted gloomily.

Sherlock was willing to take the chance. “When did you live on the streets?”

From the way Indigo tensed against him he knew he _did_ remember; the question was, would he share it? “I ran away from my first master,” he said after a moment, his voice distant, “and lived on the streets for five months.”

“Where?” Sherlock wanted to know. “In London?”

“Edinburgh.”

“Oh. You would’ve been a valuable asset to my homeless network,” Sherlock told him, trying to be complimentary.

Indigo smiled faintly. “I decided I would rather have a roof over my head,” he went on. “Edinburgh is d—n cold in the winter. At least I had some place to go back to.”

“And what happened when you went back?” Runaway slaves were not usually forgiven easily, he had heard.

Indigo shrugged. “Actually not as bad as it could have been,” he judged philosophically.

“There’s nothing in your record about it,” Sherlock noted.

“No… Technically you’re supposed to report runaway slaves to the police, but it makes them harder to sell later,” Indigo explained. “No one wants to buy a runner. A lot of them aren’t found out unless they’re caught up in a police raid.”

“Which you avoided.”

“Yes.”

They sat there in silence for a long moment. Sherlock felt the urge to reassure Indigo again somehow, even though he’d repeatedly insisted that the other man was safe with him, and Indigo showed no signs of thinking Sherlock was lying. It was more like he didn’t believe Sherlock could _keep_ that promise despite good intentions, or like it wasn’t Sherlock so much as the rest of the world he was worried about. Or maybe himself.

“You think too much,” Sherlock judged.

“Yes,” Indigo agreed dryly. “Apparently even when I don’t _think_ I’m thinking.”

“I’m not entirely certain what you’re worried about.”

“I know you aren’t.”

“But try to worry _less,_ if you can,” Sherlock advised, not unkindly. “Anxiety is quite harmful to the body, there’s medical literature on it.”

Indigo gave him a small smile but otherwise didn’t respond. “I ought to actually shower now,” he suggested, “and have breakfast.”

“Ah yes, our agenda for the day,” Sherlock agreed with some excitement, and Indigo groaned. “I want to do what SleepingHim suggested and take you to some familiar parts of the house—“

Indigo curled up against him. “I really don’t want to,” he stated. “If we _have_ to stay here, I want to _stay away_ from familiar places.”

“I think it could reveal new alters,” Sherlock persuaded.

“I know why _you_ want to do it.”

Sherlock tabled that for the moment. He was uncomfortable acting in direct contradiction to Indigo’s wishes, but this was something he considered quite important. If they got back to Baker Street, where the alters had never been needed (he liked to remind himself of this fact), he might never get the chance to meet any of the others—unless Indigo was _actually_ being threatened, which Sherlock would rather avoid.

“I think we should tell Lestrade about this,” Sherlock went on, and was surprised when Indigo abruptly pulled away and stood up.

“What? Why?” he demanded.

Sherlock rose as well, confusion on his face. “It would be useful to have an ally here, in case one of the alters appears in front of someone else,” he reasoned. He hadn’t just thought of this idea, after all. “And he’s in charge of the investigation, in case this turns out to have a connection with Simmerson’s death.” Indigo turned away at this, arms crossed tightly over his chest. Sherlock did not like to see that posture on him. “And also,” he tried, “he’s a friend. Sort off. Isn’t he? He comes ‘round a lot. Oh, we should tell Mrs. Hudson, too, when we get home. Just in case. Indigo?” he prompted after a moment.

Slowly the slave turned back around, arms loosening. “I guess… he _is_ a friend,” he agreed. “Your friend.”

“I really think he likes you better,” Sherlock commented, without envy. Friends were something he’d never gotten the hang of, he felt.

Indigo smiled a little. “Okay. I guess. You want to tell him today?”

“Yes, as soon as possible,” Sherlock confirmed. “I’ll show him the video. You can stay here, I’ll go to his room,” he added when Indigo looked uncomfortable. This was the wrong suggestion, though.

“No, I don’t want to be alone here,” Indigo said quickly, stepping closer to Sherlock.

Reminding him about the locked door with a chair blocking it hadn’t worked for SleepingHim, and Sherlock doubted it would work for Indigo. “Well, come with, then.” That was the only other solution. “You can zone out while we talk if you don’t want to be involved. What?” Indigo’s face had taken on a worried expression.

“I’m just—I’m just wondering now,” he said hesitantly, “if when I zone out… someone else actually comes _in_.” He met Sherlock’s eyes nervously.

“It’s never happened so far,” Sherlock could only point out. “Even the times you’ve been zoned out here, it hasn’t happened. Anyway,” he added in an upbeat tone, “Lestrade and I will be there with you.”

“Yes, but what about later?” Indigo persisted. “I hate being around these people, I can’t listen to them, but what if I zone out and… start acting strange in front of them?” This seemed to bother him a great deal; though Sherlock certainly didn’t care about anyone thinking _he_ acted weird. Indigo preferred to go unnoticed if possible, though.

“Well, I would try to stop you, or move you away,” Sherlock planned sensibly. “If Lestrade knows, he can do the same.”

Slowly Indigo nodded—not so much convinced as resigned, Sherlock felt. “I really need to eat something,” he decided, moving on.

“I’ll get you a granola bar,” Sherlock offered. Indigo always traveled with a stash, in case Sherlock forgot about providing meals. “We might have to share the shower, though. Lestrade will be up and about soon.”

“Right,” Indigo agreed shakily.

**

They caught Lestrade before he could leave his room, and his expression grew more intrigued when Sherlock, trailed by Indigo, pushed his way inside the suite and locked the door behind him. “Something you need to see,” Sherlock announced, holding up his mobile.

“Has this to do with the case?” Lestrade asked reasonably, as Sherlock sat down on his couch.

“Could be,” Sherlock demurred. He indicated the chair, which Lestrade took with a sigh. “I recorded this last night. What do you want to do?” Lestrade looked up to see he was talking to Indigo, who just stood there. “Whatever you want.”

At this, Indigo laid down on the couch, his head in Sherlock’s lap, and Lestrade raised an eyebrow. Sherlock allowed Indigo to be more forward than most masters, but that had to be a new record for the time and place. Lestrade knew the slave was upset to be back in this house; he was surprised Sherlock was sensitive to it, though. But there he was, stroking Indigo’s hair until he closed his eyes and relaxed.

“Alright, you can watch it now,” Sherlock allowed, pressing play for him.

Darkened bedroom, Indigo on the screen sitting on the bed. Only there was something a little _off_ about him; Lestrade wasn’t sure how else to describe it. “ _Can you tell me your name?_ ” said Sherlock on the video, obviously holding the camera phone.

“ _Yes_ ,” Indigo answered, and nothing more.

“ _You’re very literal_ ,” Sherlock told him impatiently.

“ _I am SleepingHim_ ,” Indigo replied, in a voice that didn’t sound quite right either. “ _I protect him while he sleeps…_ ”

Frustratingly Lestrade kept interrupting the video to ask Sherlock what was going on and if this was real and were they trying to set Indigo up for an insanity plea, because that wasn’t as easy as they made it look in the movies—

“Would you just keep watching?” Sherlock hissed again.

Lestrade watched until the screen went blank, then cleared his throat. “Thank G-d, I thought it was gonna turn into a porno,” he remarked with dark humor, and Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Okay, what the h—l is this?”

“Dissociative identity disorder,” Sherlock diagnosed. “Caused by severe trauma, going back to his childhood, actually.” He was still irritated that he didn’t know about this part already. “Alternate personalities develop, control his body, make decisions, keep the memories locked away—“

“I _do_ know a little bit about it, actually,” Lestrade interrupted, which was the signal to Sherlock that he was being too patronizing in his tone. “We have mental illness training. You didn’t know about this before?”

Sherlock glanced down at Indigo to make sure he was still out. “No. The alters hadn’t been needed with me. But they got a lot of use in this house, and being here again triggered them.” He lowered his voice slightly. “It’s marvelous,” he confessed to Lestrade. “Really brilliant mental compartmentalization. Indigo didn’t know it happened either, he just thought he blacked out a lot.”

“J---s, Sherlock, don’t sound so happy,” Lestrade chided. “This is really bad.” He seemed slightly appalled that Sherlock didn’t realize this.

Sherlock snorted. “What’s really bad,” he corrected, “is the way Indigo’s been treated, ever since he was a child.” His fingers curled protectively over the slave’s shoulder, a sufficiently unusual gesture for him that it caught Lestrade’s eye. “The way he’s managed to deal with it, to survive, is amazing.”

“Yeah, but now we’ve not got just a _slave_ who was the last to see his abusive master alive,” Lestrade noted, “but a _loony_ slave, with violent alternate personalities who do things he doesn’t remember. If this bunch of jackals weren’t so eager to pin the old man’s death on someone mentioned in his will, that’s all they’d need to get Indigo arrested.”

“Well they aren’t going to know about it, are they?” Sherlock snapped. “I’m telling you this as a—a _friend_ , so you can help deal with it if one of the alters appears in front of other people.”

“Sherlock, I appreciate that,” Lestrade tried to explain, because he really did—Sherlock was as prickly as a hedgehog, so hearing him pronounce Lestrade a rare ‘friend’ meant something to him. “But I have to do my job. If we find _any_ evidence that Indigo—or someone just using his body—killed Simmerson, I’ll have to take him in.” Sherlock huffed sharply at this. “Now you show me this—it’s not just a matter of believing Indigo anymore, he might very well think he’s telling the truth. But if one of his alters did it—it’s still murder.”

“You know if he were free, this would be self-defense,” Sherlock claimed bitterly, running his fingers gently through Indigo’s hair.

“Not necessarily,” Lestrade had to counter, unwillingly. “I’ve worked several prolonged-abuse cases—servants, family members. Doesn’t always end the way you think it should.” Just because someone was a monster, didn’t mean it was lawful to kill them—whether general opinion was they deserved it or not. “You really didn’t know?” he added in a lighter tone. “This is a big thing to miss.”

Sherlock glared at him, but exasperated rather than angry. “No, that’s only the second time I’ve met SleepingHim,” he said, nodding at the phone. “I told you, they weren’t needed under my care.”

“Nah, they just sat quietly in his head, listening to you play the violin,” Lestrade teased. “You seen any others?” he asked more seriously.

“No, just SleepingHim,” Sherlock admitted with disappointment. “I want to go around the house and see if any more are stirred up, but Indigo is _resistant_.”

“Probably pretty freaked out,” Lestrade guessed sympathetically, “if he didn’t know either.” He’d always found the slave pleasant, if a bit detached and subdued, but slavery wasn’t pretty and Sherlock needed someone low-key to offset his manic energy, anyway. Finding out there was something dark and unpredictable lurking under the surface—it was disturbing. And yet, somehow not really surprising, when Lestrade thought about it. Probably more slaves would turn up with similar disorders, if anyone bothered to check.

“He doesn’t realize how incredible it is,” Sherlock was saying. “People whose minds couldn’t split like that would’ve been broken a long time ago.” He stroked Indigo’s cheek gently.

Lestrade never thought he’d see Sherlock openly fond of someone, in a slightly conventional way. Of course, the person he had to choose was completely _unconventional_ , now even more so. “What happened when he was a kid?” he asked, not sure he really wanted to know.

Sherlock shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been busy researching this disorder, and he doesn’t want to talk about it,” he admitted, vexed. “And as you saw, the alters won’t tell me. Yet. I’m going to look into it as soon as this nonsense is over.”

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Speaking of this nonsense, I have to get back to work,” he sighed. “I was going to check out the old man’s bedroom,” he added. “It was swept for evidence when he died, but they said they haven’t touched it since. Want to come along?”

“That would be perfect!” Sherlock proclaimed. “Indigo,” he said in a soft tone, touching his cheek gently, and the slave roused slowly, blinking his eyes up at Sherlock and smiling slightly before the memory of where he was and what had been happening returned to him. Sherlock liked the first part of the expression, not so much the second. “You’re alright,” he tried to tell Indigo. “We’re in Lestrade’s room.”

“Oh. Right.” Hesitantly he turned his gaze on the detective inspector.

“Freaky stuff, that,” Lestrade acknowledged frankly, nodding at Sherlock’s phone. Might as well get that out in the open. “Can’t believe you managed to keep it a secret from _him_ ,” he added in a cheekier tone.

Indigo sat up slowly. “Yes, well, he didn’t realize when he bought me that he was getting a boxed set,” he remarked dryly.

“You didn’t present any alters while you were zoned out,” Sherlock informed him helpfully.

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“I think SleepingHim only comes out at night,” Sherlock theorized, scrutinizing stills from the video. “That would suggest another alter protects you during the day.”

“UnderHim?” Lestrade suggested. Indigo found it a bit surreal how calmly the other two seemed to be taking this.

Sherlock shook his head. “No, I think he’s more a director than an actor,” he judged. “SleepingHim basically said there _are_ other alters, they just don’t want to tell me about them directly.”

“Why not?” Lestrade asked sensibly. “I mean, why all the vague mumbo-jumbo? You’re here, they’re talking to you, they have to know you’re not gonna give up until you turn over every rock and expose every slimy secret—er, no offense, Indigo,” he added belatedly.

“I don’t know the slimy secrets either,” Indigo admitted. “But if they tell _him_ , I’ll find out, because he can’t keep _anything_ a secret.”

“That’s not true,” Sherlock insisted indignantly as Lestrade smirked. “I keep things secret all the time.”

“Forgetting does not count,” Indigo judged succinctly.

“No? Well, it should.”

Lestrade shook his head and stood, heading purposefully for the door. Sherlock followed and Indigo followed _him_. “Maybe you _need_ five or six different personalities, just to put up with _him_ ,” he joked to Indigo. “Rotate them as they get worn out.”

“You know, I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Indigo replied thoughtfully, as Sherlock rolled his eyes.

They twined through the halls of the ornate manor, Sherlock glancing between Lestrade and his mobile, Indigo clinging to Sherlock’s hand with his eyes on the ground. It was an appropriately subservient posture, which also kept him from paying much attention to his surroundings. He didn’t zone out, though, because Sherlock didn’t like him to do that while they were moving—he wouldn’t use his full-immersion level, of course, but still it was deep enough that he sometimes ran into things or stopped where he stood, which irritated his master. Plus now he couldn’t shake the feeling that whenever he voluntarily gave up control of his senses—something he had always seen as a positive coping strategy—someone else might swoop in to fill the vacuum, and start doing things he didn’t agree with.

Speaking of which, the blue roses on the carpeting were giving him a sick feeling of dread. What didn’t, in this house. But still… “Where are we going?” Indigo asked suddenly.

“Simmerson’s bedroom,” Lestrade answered casually when Sherlock didn’t, and Indigo stopped in his tracks, yanking Sherlock to a halt as well.

“No,” Indigo said, before he could think any further.

Sherlock put his mobile away, a sign he was giving this reaction his full attention. How thoughtful. “Indigo—“

“No,” he repeated. “I can’t go there.” He didn’t know how to make Sherlock understand. His pulse was pounding, his breath coming sharply, and he felt light-headed. “I can’t—I really can’t—“ He twisted his hand out of Sherlock’s and sat down heavily in a chair in the hall, fearing he might faint.

Sherlock knelt down in front of him. The concern on his face was genuine, but so was the determination. “Indigo, it’s just a room,” he began, not unkindly. “Nothing in it can hurt you anymore. I’ll be there, and Lestrade will be there,” he added.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t let anything happen to you, mate,” Lestrade added encouragingly.

“And I strongly suspect that not long after you get in there, you’ll zone out, and someone else will take over,” Sherlock theorized.

“Is that all you care about?” Indigo snapped. “You just want to see more _alters_ , you don’t care—“ He stopped himself and stared at his fists clenched on his lap, finally remembering his place.

Someone else would have been embarrassed that such behavior by their slave was witnessed; but Sherlock had different standards—and anyway, Lestrade kind of agreed with Indigo. Still, Sherlock was silent for a long moment, his face unreadable. Then he stood abruptly. “Alright,” he said simply.

Indigo looked up at him quickly. “Alright?”

“You don’t have to come with us,” Sherlock allowed. He didn’t sound angry, at least. “Lestrade and I will check out Simmerson’s bedroom for clues.” He started to walk away purposefully.

Indigo stood from the chair rapidly. “Where should—what should I do?” he asked, as if hardly daring to believe Sherlock was just going to let him be, finally.

“Whatever you want,” Sherlock shrugged. He was getting far enough away that Lestrade figured he was serious and hurried down the hall after him. “You can go back to the room, or wait out here for us, or whatever you want,” Sherlock reiterated over his shoulder. He was back to staring at his mobile as he strode away.

Lestrade looked back to see Indigo just standing there, looking increasingly small and lost. He understood him not wanting to return to Simmerson’s bedroom. He also understood him not wanting to be alone in this house, anywhere, especially after his recent mental health revelation. But _he_ should understand by now—Lestrade certainly did—that Sherlock was an implacable force, who would not be stopped or dissuaded when he wanted something. He was here to help investigate a crime, and nothing would turn him aside from that—especially when it was Indigo who was under some suspicion.

“Wait,” Indigo said suddenly, so faintly it could barely be heard. “Wait!” he called more loudly, and Sherlock stopped and turned. Looking resigned Indigo jogged down the corridor to meet them. “You’re such a b-----d sometimes,” Indigo told Sherlock, taking his hand. Lestrade’s eyebrows rose.

“I know,” Sherlock admitted with a sigh. “Sorry.”

Indigo faced the door at the end of the hall, their target, and swallowed hard. “I may have a nervous breakdown,” he warned.

“Oh, too late,” Sherlock reminded him jauntily. “Coming, Lestrade?”

Indigo went like a man facing execution, squeezing Sherlock’s hand harder and harder the closer they got. Sherlock didn’t complain, though. They reached the door and Indigo had to lean against the wall, eyes closed, while Lestrade unlocked the room with the key he’d gotten earlier.

“Just zone out any time,” Sherlock encouraged. “It’s alright.”

“I’m trying,” Indigo assured him.

This was the master bedroom in a house that was already ostentatious; the first thing they saw was its own foyer. Then they entered the room proper, with its vaulted ceiling painted like the sky, the massive four-poster bed, enough furniture for a small flat. In Indigo’s view it all fractured and turned red, familiar spots swelling out of proportion. Then it went black.

Sherlock was watching Indigo closely, filming him with his camera and studying the transformation. At first it was just Indigo, terrified, trying to control himself, trying to send his mind away, and Sherlock grimaced unconsciously. He was familiar with the moment it worked, the sudden slackness even if he remained upright. And then, as he watched, Indigo’s body came alive again, like a puppet whose strings were pulled by a new player. The new person opened his eyes and looked around—and giggled.

The giggle caught Lestrade’s attention. “What was that?” he asked suspiciously.

“I think we’re about to meet a new alter,” Sherlock predicted with satisfaction, gazing over the top of his camera phone. “What’s your name?”

This new not-Indigo was giving Sherlock a blatant ogling, biting his lip fetchingly. Then suddenly he threw his arms around Sherlock’s neck and knocked him onto the bed, kissing him passionately. Sherlock felt _very_ confused—this was Indigo, so it was alright, but he didn’t _kiss_ like Indigo, and that was strange. Sherlock forced him back, gently.

“Bloody h—l,” Lestrade muttered, rolling his eyes.

Sherlock groped for his fallen mobile and stopped not-Indigo from groping _him_. “Hello,” he said awkwardly, pointing the camera at the man who curled on his chest like a cat.

“Hello!” he replied breathily, smiling. It was impossible not to respond to his enthusiasm.

“What’s your name?” Sherlock repeated.

“Oh, I’m called lots of things,” not-Indigo responded coyly, rubbing at Sherlock’s chest.

“Such as?”

“Mmm, here the master said I was a dirty little slut,” he revealed playfully.

Sherlock could see the usefulness of this alter. “That’s not a very nice name,” he chided lightly, his arm settling over the other man.

“Saucy minx?” he suggested helpfully.

Sherlock thought about going for Minx, imagined Indigo’s reaction, and changed his mind. “I could call you Saucy,” he offered.

Saucy giggled again. Sherlock did not think Indigo had ever giggled in his presence. “Alright.” He evidently decided that the preliminaries were now over and tried to kiss Sherlock again.

Sherlock held him off, and Saucy frowned in disappointment, charmingly. “Can I film you?” Sherlock finally asked, indicating the camera phone.

“If you want,” Saucy agreed. “We can watch it together later. Be sure to get my best angles!”

“Not _that_ kind of film,” Sherlock corrected hastily, and Saucy pouted. “To show Indigo later.”

“Mmm, I could give him some tips,” Saucy offered, and it was clear from his roaming hands he wasn’t talking about, say, taxes or interior decorating. “I bet you would really like—“ He stretched up to whisper a suggestion into Sherlock’s ear that was slightly shocking but also intriguing, and punctuated it by nibbling Sherlock’s earlobe.

“Sherlock!” Lestrade complained about the delay.

Saucy popped up, straddling Sherlock, and gave Lestrade a flirtatious smile. “Shall we have a threesome?” he asked gamely. “I love threesomes! Can I be on the very bottom?”

“This is disturbing,” Lestrade decided. Indigo just did _not_ act like this. But that was the point, wasn’t it—this wasn’t _really_ the Indigo he knew. This was someone who had been created to enjoy the duties he had to perform here, which would otherwise have been too difficult to bear.

“Saucy, you know who I am?” Sherlock checked, aiming the camera up at this person he found maybe a little _too_ delightful.

“Yes,” Saucy agreed, running his hands down Sherlock’s chest. “You’re the tall, handsome bloke _he_ gets to shag all the time.” He was definitely jealous.

“Well, that’s one way to look at it,” Sherlock agreed, trying not to get distracted. Saucy’s entire purpose was distraction, however. He captured his hands and held them still over his chest. “Okay, Saucy, we need to ask you some questions,” he said seriously. “About how you protect Indigo.”

“Oh, I’ll do just about anything,” Saucy purred. Since his hands were trapped he rocked his hips over Sherlock’s. “You know what I mean? And enjoy it. That’s what I do.”

“Sit still, please,” Sherlock told him, trying to be stern, and Saucy stuck his lower lip out. “When were you first needed? In this house?”

“No, before, when _he_ first became a slave,” Saucy corrected.

“He means Indigo?” Lestrade checked.

“Yes, they don’t seem to use his name,” Sherlock told him. “Go on, Saucy.”

“Well, lots of people want slaves for sex, don’t they?” Saucy added, somehow both flirtatious and matter-of-fact at the same time. “It’s so scary if you don’t enjoy it! But I enjoy everything and everyone.”

He was rocking again and Sherlock finally squirmed away from him, sitting up on the bed. Saucy tried to get closer but Sherlock held him off. “No, Saucy, I want to _talk_ to you,” he reiterated.

“Talk dirty?” Saucy asked hopefully.

“No,” Sherlock said firmly, but he couldn’t help smirking. In a weird way this alter was charming and almost innocent, in his pure enthusiasm for pleasure. “You remember being in this house, with your master, Simmerson?”

Saucy giggled. “Of course! I was here all the time. He was very energetic! His favorite thing to do was—“ He managed to lean into Sherlock’s ear again and whisper.

This time Sherlock’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s disgusting,” he judged, in a slightly shocked tone.

Saucy giggled again. “I know! He was a dirty old man.”

Lestrade gave him a questioning look and Sherlock shook his head, trying to stay focused. This wasn’t easy with Saucy determined to touch some part of him, though, and Sherlock took his hands again. He seemed to crave affection.

“Saucy, were you here the night Simmerson died?” Sherlock asked, prepared to get the runaround.

Instead Saucy answered, “Yes,” and Sherlock and Lestrade immediately became alert.

“What happened?” Lestrade asked, and Saucy turned his eyes on him flirtatiously.

“Shall I show you?” he offered, and Lestrade rolled his eyes, feeling like he’d walked into that one.

“Saucy,” Sherlock snapped, suddenly sharp, and the slave turned to him with a startled expression. “No one but me, do you understand? I’m your master now, and I don’t share.” Sherlock didn’t care if he sounded jealous—this alter obviously had some loose parameters, as was his purpose, but he didn’t need to do anything that Indigo would regret.

“Oh, alright,” Saucy agreed, curling up against Sherlock, who sort of felt like he had to allow it for a moment.

“Now tell us what happened that night,” he instructed, putting his arm loosely around the slave’s waist.

“Oh, the master was so upset when he sent for me,” Saucy reported dramatically. “I tried all sorts of things to help him focus, even this special thing which I learned from—“ Lestrade cleared his throat. “ _Anyway_ ,” Saucy went on, clearly finding the story dull without these flourishes, “he’d had a terrible argument with his son, that’s why he was so upset.”

“There’s nothing about that in the report,” Lestrade noted, as he traded significant looks with Sherlock.

“Which son?” Sherlock asked Saucy.

“Sir James. He’s rather handsome, in an alcoholic sort of way, don’t you think?” Saucy described, a bit dreamily. Then he huffed dismissively. “ _Not_ my type, though. He only likes girls.”

“How unimaginative,” Sherlock sympathized.

“So Sir James and his father have a big argument the night of his death, which he conveniently didn’t mention to the police,” Lestrade prompted. “What was it about?”

Saucy was playing not-so-idly with Sherlock’s shirt buttons. “Hmm? Oh, I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Money, I think, they often argued about money. Sir James was drinking away his inheritance,” Saucy gossiped.

“Well after you distracted Simmerson, what happened?” Sherlock pressed. “I mean _later_ ,” he added, before Saucy could get into gory details.

“Well _later_ , when he was done, I wasn’t needed anymore,” Saucy explained with a shrug. “You have such beautiful eyes, I could just stare at them all day,” he sighed, doing so. “Only I think your clothing distracts from them a bit…”

Sherlock found himself grinning. There was something so bizarre about this situation—if Saucy had been some random person in a bar Sherlock would’ve been completely disinterested, disgusted even, by the blatant come-ons and one-track mind. But it was different coming from someone who looked quite a lot like Indigo, not just someone he found attractive but also a known quantity. In some sense the alters represented paths not taken, personalities that could have been entirely Indigo’s if things had gone differently, and seeing them on him temporarily was surprisingly intriguing—like seeing someone wear a very different style of clothing than usual. Not to mention, this particular alter knew exactly how to please whoever he was focused on—that was his survival skill. Thinking about it that way, Sherlock’s smile began to fade, and his arm tightened around the slave.

“And _then_ what happened?” Lestrade insisted, when it seemed like the two of them were just going to gaze into each other’s eyes. “After you weren’t needed anymore?”

“Well I don’t _know_ , do I?” Saucy responded, a bit petulantly. “I wasn’t _here_.” He seemed miffed about this.

“What usually happens?” Sherlock asked, in a warmer tone.

“ _He_ goes back to his room,” Saucy replied. “The master was not a cuddler. I like cuddling,” he added, demonstrating.

Sherlock tried to reclaim some breathing room. “You don’t know what happened after that? When were you needed again?”

“Not for a long time,” Saucy sighed, dramatically. “And then we were someplace different. They didn’t like cuddling, either,” he hinted.

“I have to talk to Indigo before we can consider, er, cuddling,” Sherlock warned. “It’s his body, you know.”

“ _Hardly_ fair,” Saucy whined. “No one ever wants to cuddle with me!” He stuck his lip out impressively and Sherlock tried not to laugh.

“Sir James could’ve returned after Indigo left,” Lestrade pointed out, trying to keep them on track. Saucy burrowed against Sherlock and ignored him. “Rekindled the argument, maybe pushed him to the floor where he hit his head.”

“The slave in the hall saw Indigo leave, but no one else entered,” Sherlock reminded him. “Saucy, is there another entrance to this room? Maybe a concealed one?”

“A back door in the bedroom?” Saucy rephrased, then giggled naughtily. Sherlock gave him a look and he cleared his throat. “No, not that I know of,” he finally replied, trying to be serious.

“And you’d know,” Sherlock deadpanned, and Saucy laughed.

“And there wasn’t anyone else in here with you two that night?” Lestrade continued. “Maybe someone who’d entered earlier, and stayed hidden—“ He began to look around the room. “There’s certainly plenty of space, the bathroom, the closet—“

“Could someone get in the windows?” Sherlock check, disentangling himself from Saucy to check. They seemed unreachable. “Are there windows behind that curtain?” he asked Lestrade, of the large patterned drapery across one wall.

“ _Don’t go near the curtain!_ ” Saucy suddenly shrieked, and both men turned to him in surprise. He was perched on the edge of the bed, clutching the coverlet tightly, and his face was pale.

“Saucy, what’s wrong?” Sherlock asked urgently.

“Don’t go over there, it’s scary, it’s bad!” Saucy insisted, tears forming in his eyes. It was a complete turnaround from his previous behavior, but Sherlock was pretty sure it was still him. He was just—terrified.

“Saucy, it’s alright, nothing in here can hurt you now,” Sherlock assured him. He _definitely_ wanted to see what was behind the curtain now—though the feeling that he should return to Saucy to comfort him was oddly strong. “Just stay there on the bed, you’ll be fine.” Saucy moaned and curled up on the bed as Sherlock and Lestrade advanced on the curtain. At Sherlock’s nod Lestrade yanked it aside.

“Bloody h—l,” Lestrade commented. “This was not in the report, either.”

It was hard to see how the police could have missed Simmerson’s own private torture chamber. The curtain concealed a narrow gap, only about three feet wide, between the edge of the carpet and the wall, which was cold stone instead of the wood paneling of the rest of the room. Easy to see why: the various manacles and chains probably wouldn’t have been as secure in wood paneling. There was even a floor drain and attached hose for easy clean-up.

“Nice setup, huh?” said a voice behind them, and Lestrade and Sherlock whirled around to see a new not-Indigo, lounging comfortably on the bed. He had a nasty smirk on his face.

Sherlock approached slowly, pointing the camera phone at him. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Charlie,” the slave answered readily, then added with emphasis, “ _Bonnie Prince_ Charlie. And you can film me.” His tone was arrogant.

“Thanks,” Sherlock replied dryly, not liking _this_ particular style on Indigo very much.

“What, you think you’re royalty or something?” Lestrade scoffed. “Is Cleopatra going to show up next?”

Charlie sat up and left the bed, his movements swift, smooth, powerful. His very walk oozed intimidation. The transformation was fascinating to Sherlock, especially the way he so confidently stepped just inside Lestrade’s personal space, forcing him to either back up or confront. Of course, Lestrade knew a thing or two about intimidation, too.

“Charlie,” Sherlock warned, and the slave backed off.

“Bonnie Prince Charlie is harder for people to say,” he explained, “when they’re otherwise occupied.” He nodded towards the wall of chains. “And if they can’t say my name properly, they get punished.” He grinned like a shark.

Lestrade obviously found him distasteful. “Why would you be punishing someone?”

“The master enjoyed it,” Charlie shrugged. “ _Obviously_. He’s got this thing in his bedroom instead of a big-screen telly. And I can make them squeal in high definition.”

For a second Sherlock found it amusing, at least the way Lestrade was trying to rein in his disgust at this perfectly logical manifestation of survival skills. But then he realized that Indigo would rather be punished himself than hurt others for someone’s entertainment—Charlie was exactly what he was worried about, losing his ability to make choices he could live with.

“When were you first needed, Charlie?” Sherlock asked, trying to get the questions over with quickly so this alter could go away.

“I was born here,” Charlie mused. Unintimidated by the wall of chains he stepped closer and rubbed the stones thoughtfully. “The first thing I ever saw was this spot right here. I was chained up, and there was some sobbing git behind me with a whip, doing a bloody bad job with it. The master said if we didn’t shape up he’d feed us both to the dogs. And I said, ‘Let _me_ try the whip.’” He shrugged as if to say, _and that was that_.

Lestrade’s lip curled as he looked at Charlie. “It’s illegal to kill a slave,” he had to point out, as if this invalidated Charlie’s whole existence.

Instead Charlie just snorted. “We saw Simmerson do it once, feed a slave to the dogs,” he claimed matter-of-factly. “No one ever asks about slaves. You just have the family doctor say they died of an illness or in an accident.”

“Dr. Bernard?” Lestrade asked with a frown.

“Not a nice fellow,” Charlie judged, which was rather saying something.

Lestrade and Sherlock exchanged a glance, now wondering how accurate the supposedly respectable doctor’s testimony was. “Were you here the night Simmerson died?” Sherlock asked, but Charlie shook his head.

“No. I think it was the dirty little slut’s turn,” he said casually.

“Saucy,” Sherlock corrected sharply, and Charlie smirked at him knowingly.

“Did you ask SleepingHim?” Charlie inquired. He at least seemed mildly interested in the case, unlike most of the other alters.

“He’s a little vague,” Sherlock admitted.

“That’s one word for it,” Charlie agreed rudely. “Well, thanks to _me_ , he had to be on duty every night. So he was probably up guarding _him_ that night.”

“Guarding Indigo?” Lestrade asked. The lack of proper names was getting confusing.

“ _Yes_ ,” Charlie said slowly, as if Lestrade was a stupid child. Sherlock had often been accused of speaking the same way himself, but he couldn’t believe _he_ put quite so much… nastiness into his tone. “Between SleepingHim and Fury, _he_ was always fending off people I’d worked on. Petty, really. We’re all just trying to—“

“Fury?” Sherlock seized on the new name eagerly.

Charlie put his hand over his mouth in an exaggerated show of regret. “Oh, did I say that? I shouldn’t have,” he claimed insincerely. “Fury protects us during the day,” he went on anyway. “Neanderthal. No finesse. Let me show you something.”

He walked over to a metal cabinet that was against the wall in the alcove and expertly flipped open the doors. Inside hung a variety of whips and sticks as well as drawers containing smaller items whose specific use was unclear, but almost certainly unpleasant.

“That’s who you’re dealing with,” Charlie announced. “Simmerson, I mean. Fellow who’s got a room like this, that collection, someone like _me_. Lots and lots of slaves would’ve liked to be standing over his corpse.”

“Including you?” Lestrade accused. “Or maybe you liked your job too much.”

Charlie turned on them slowly, a sneer on his face. “You two don’t know what it’s like to be a slave,” he pointed out acidly. “To be trapped somewhere and to know you have absolutely no recourse, that someone like Simmerson can do whatever they want to you and no one will—“

“Charlie,” Sherlock interrupted. The slave had idly picked up some sort of mallet and was gesturing with it. “He’s dead now, you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

Charlie sighed and tossed the mallet back in the cabinet with a clang, and Sherlock and Lestrade relaxed slightly. “Yeah,” he agreed shortly. “I don’t really _enjoy_ what I do,” he tried to explain. “You think the dirty little slut _enjoyed_ having sex with that disgusting old man?”

“Saucy,” Sherlock corrected again.

“We just don’t _mind_ ,” Charlie concluded. “We don’t _mind_ , and _he_ is safer.”

“I understand, Charlie,” Sherlock told him. “You did what you had to, to protect Indigo. I appreciate it.”

Charlie nodded slowly. “UnderHim said you would, but I didn’t really believe it,” he admitted.

“I want Indigo to be safe,” Sherlock stated. “Have you been needed since Indigo left here?”

“No,” Charlie replied. “I’ve missed out on a lot. UnderHim was filling me in. He’s a controlling sod.”

“Indigo is safe with me,” Sherlock assured him. “So you don’t have to worry.” He hesitated, then held out his hand, and Charlie came away from the torture devices to take it. Sherlock was not sure Charlie could ever be entirely sincere, but there was a hint of gratitude in his eyes.

“All very sweet, I’m sure,” Lestrade interrupted sarcastically. Charlie rubbed him the wrong way, not unreasonably, he thought. “This alter is obviously violent,” he noted to Sherlock. “How do we know _he_ didn’t have something to do with Simmerson’s death?”

“Two reasons,” Charlie answered promptly, before Sherlock had to. “One: we do not hurt the master. To hurt the master is death.” He spoke like he was reciting an oft-repeated phrase.

“Who told you that?” Sherlock wanted to know.

“UnderHim.” Not surprising. “First thing he says when we’re needed, usually. Patronizing git. Simmerson gave me weapons and license to use them—he wouldn’t have done that if he thought there was the slightest chance I’d turn on him.”

Lestrade was unconvinced. “Yeah, but you seem like the sneaky type to me,” he observed. “The type who’d be well-behaved for years, then suddenly attack.”

Charlie did not like this suggestion and his face contorted with a sneer. “We _do not_ hurt the master,” he repeated vehemently. “To hurt the master is death.” Sherlock tugged on his hand, reminding him of his new master’s presence. “Bloody elaborate, all these different personalities,” he complained, less tensely, “if we’re just going to go and get the body killed from losing our temper.”

“What’s the second thing?” Sherlock prompted. He had to admit that Charlie’s straightforward pragmatism was growing on him.

“Well,” Charlie began idly, “if I _were_ to hurt the master—not that I really would, but I might have thought about it”—Lestrade rolled his eyes at the admission—“you wouldn’t have to ask if I’d done it,” he revealed darkly. “When you saw the body you’d know there could be no other. Heard he fell out of bed?” Charlie snorted. “I’d chain him to this wall,” he shared thoughtfully, “and use some of my favorite tools on him.” He shrugged. “There’s no justice in the world, is there?”

“Well we do _try_ ,” Lestrade muttered. He was never sure what to do with _that_ sort of confession—‘If _I’d_ killed him, I would’ve done it in a much nastier way.’ He heard it more often than people might think.

“He’s dead at least,” Sherlock pointed out. “But if Indigo goes to jail for it, that certainly won’t be justice.” Lestrade ignored this remark and just hoped he never had to arrest Indigo or, for that matter, Sherlock for anything. “Did you hear anything about Simmerson having a fight with Sir James that day?”

“I hadn’t been needed in a few days,” Charlie told them. “Simmerson hated all his kids, though. They all just wanted his money and he knew it. The only one he ever said anything nice about was Teagan, and even so they didn’t exactly get along personally.”

Lestrade goggled at him. “ _Reverend_ Teagan? He’s Simmerson’s son?”

“Wrong side of the blanket, of course,” Charlie conveyed easily. “You didn’t know that? _Everyone_ knows that,” he asserted smugly.

“I’ve about had it with this guy,” Lestrade muttered to Sherlock.

“He’s actually been quite helpful,” Sherlock reminded him, though with some reluctance.

“Thought of something else,” Charlie interrupted, “unless you’d rather talk about _me_.” He waited until Sherlock gave him an expectant look. “There was a slave here called Star, a woman. I worked on her a lot for Simmerson. But she didn’t blame _me_ —probably the only one,” he acknowledged. “She knew it was Simmerson’s fault. And she hated him. Well, didn’t everyone.”

“Star,” Lestrade repeated, checking his mobile. “There’s no slave by that name in the household now. I’ll see if she was sold.”

“Thank you, Charlie,” Sherlock said, when Lestrade didn’t. For some reason he made a greater effort to be polite to the alters than he did with regular people—perhaps the combination of their unpredictability and their proximity to Indigo’s body.

“I live to follow orders,” Charlie claimed obnoxiously. “What do you want me to do now?” He addressed this to Sherlock.

Lestrade gave him a long-suffering look. “Er, well, I guess we’re done for the moment,” Sherlock told the slave. “Thanks for your help.” He’d never sent an alter away before—usually he wanted to know everything about them. But a little of Charlie went a long way.

Charlie seemed resigned to this reaction. “Alright,” he sighed. “Who do you want now?”

“I can choose?” Sherlock asked in excited surprise. That would be very nice.

Charlie cocked his head to the side, a gesture Sherlock recognized from SleepingHim. “UnderHim says _he_ won’t like it in here,” he passed along. “So if you don’t want me, it’s probably going to be the dirty—er, Saucy,” he corrected himself. “Better move away from this wall, he couldn’t handle that stuff,” he warned.

“Alright, come on,” Sherlock agreed, guiding him back towards the bed. “Lestrade, are we done here?”

“I want to get some pictures,” the policeman decided. And then he was going to find out why so many crucial pieces of evidence were left out of the original report.

Sherlock filmed the transition from Charlie to Saucy, then tucked his phone away for reasons of safety as Saucy threw his arms around his neck. “Oh, you’re back!” he exalted, kissing Sherlock.

Sherlock pried him off. “Saucy, what did I tell you before?” he said, trying to be stern. “I have to talk to Indigo first and get his permission, before you and I can kiss.”

Saucy still had his arms around Sherlock and twirled his hair around his fingers. “But you’re his master,” he noted. “You can just tell him what to do.”

“Well, we don’t work like that,” Sherlock tried to explain.

Saucy beamed at him. “Really? That’s sweet.” And tried to kiss him again.

“Saucy!”

“Oh, I forgot,” he claimed impishly. A flash from Lestrade’s camera distracted him and Sherlock felt him tense as he saw the exposed stone wall. Swiftly Sherlock turned them so the slave’s back was to it.

“It’s alright, you don’t have anything to worry about,” Sherlock soothed. “Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

“You wouldn’t let it, would you?” Saucy judged, snuggling against Sherlock’s chest. “You’re _so_ strong!” He sighed contentedly.

Sherlock did not really know what to do in this situation, but then he realized he really didn’t have to do _anything_ , Saucy was happy to cuddle him. He draped his arms around the slave while they waited for Lestrade.

“Saucy, do you know Charlie?” he asked idly. Saucy gave a slightly impatient sigh, as though thinking of such things interrupted his relaxation. “Is that a yes?” Sherlock guessed dryly.

“He’s not very nice, is he?” Saucy opined, mumbling into Sherlock’s chest. “But… he does things I don’t want to do…” he conceded reluctantly.

“All the alters have their purpose, don’t they?” Sherlock suggested. “Or they wouldn’t have been needed.”

“UnderHim says they get easier to make as we go along,” Saucy shared. Now he was nuzzling against Sherlock’s chest, just lightly enough to avoid censure.

“Is Charlie the newest one?” Sherlock pressed. He felt Saucy’s fingers behind his back, not-so-idly playing with the waistband of his trousers.

“Oh, I don’t know, I can’t keep track of them all,” Saucy huffed. “Couldn’t we just do a _little_ —“ He leaned up to whisper a suggestion in Sherlock’s ear and he found himself considering it for a moment.

“No, no, no,” Sherlock chided, as much for himself as for Saucy. “I have to talk to Indigo first. Quit being naughty.” And since when did he start using words like ‘naughty’? Especially with someone who would find them appealing.

Saucy giggled. “If I’m naughty, you’ll have to spank me,” he singsonged to Sherlock, letting his hands wander, and Sherlock grabbed them.

“No, that’s not what I meant—“

“Are you two ready to go, or should I just leave you alone here?” Lestrade asked sarcastically, putting his camera away. There was nothing in this room he found the least bit titillating, especially after seeing the torture chamber and its toys.

“Are you sure we can’t invite him to—“

“No,” Sherlock told Saucy definitively, and was pleased to see the slave didn’t even glance at Lestrade. He didn’t want to worry about what Saucy would get up to if left unattended.

“Oh, alright,” Saucy sighed, still clinging to Sherlock.

Sherlock started to follow Lestrade to the door. “I think you’re about to go away, aren’t you?” he warned Saucy.

“Yes. Not much need for me out there,” Saucy sniffed disdainfully, nodding at the hallway visible through two sets of doors. “Call me back when you get to bed!” he insisted to Sherlock.

“We’ll see,” he hedged. “One more question. Do you know Fury?”

“Mmm,” Saucy responded vaguely.

“Saucy,” Sherlock prompted.

“He’s very… hmm… he’s a bit angry, I think,” Saucy understated. “I don’t really like angry people. Charlie’s kind of angry, too. I like making people happy!” he asserted, massaging Sherlock’s shoulders. “I think I could make you very happy—“

His tone became increasingly desperate as Sherlock backed him through the first doorway and foyer. “Goodbye, Saucy,” Sherlock told him, not unkindly, as he pushed him back into the hall. Lestrade shut the door to the bedroom and locked it again.

Saucy held on for a moment, then Sherlock saw, up close, the change that went through the body as Saucy left and Indigo returned. It was fascinating—a moment of total blankness when no one seemed to be in charge at all, then the expression changed to one Sherlock recognized as Indigo’s and the slave staggered slightly, finding himself in an unfamiliar position with his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders. Sherlock steadied him and guided him to sit on a nearby bench, crouching down to study him.

Indigo let out a long sigh as he got his bearings. His entire body language changed, became more withdrawn and tense, but that was normal for him, especially here. Then he glanced at the people staring at him sheepishly. “We did go in, didn’t we?” he checked. He vaguely remembered seeing the bedroom again. “Did you meet any new alters?”

Sherlock nodded, eyes bright, and held up two fingers. “And I learned the name of a third one,” he revealed, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. “We’re up to five now!”

Indigo leaned his head back against the wall. “G-d, I’m messed up,” he judged.

Sherlock hopped up to sit next to him. “Not at all!” he insisted. “Okay, maybe a little,” he revised. “But it’s really brilliant, Indigo! You create the right person to deal with every unpleasant situation, and yet none of them are actually bad people—“

“That Charlie is rather dodgy,” Lestrade supplied contrarily.

“Charlie?” Indigo repeated faintly.

Sherlock rolled his eyes at Lestrade. “Alright, maybe you wouldn’t want to have him at tea,” he conceded, his tone saying this was a stupid criterion anyway, “but he’s perfect for the setting, _and_ he’s been the most helpful in terms of information.”

“ _If_ we can trust him,” Lestrade countered stubbornly.

“Well, let’s ask Indigo,” Sherlock proposed, and they both turned on the slave with a frightening intensity.

Indigo shrank back. “Ask-ask me what?” he said warily.

“How did Simmerson feel about his children?” Sherlock interrogated.

“Hated them,” Indigo replied immediately.

“Sir James in particular?” queried Lestrade.

“Always arguing,” Indigo confirmed. “But what does—“

“Any illegitimate children?” Sherlock interrupted.

“Reverend Teagan,” Indigo answered, then looked at their expressions. “Everyone knows that. Don’t they?”

Sherlock was smug. “I think you’re looking at a cover-up, Lestrade,” he opined. “Quite a lot of people who lied to the police.”

Indigo was still confused. “Sherlock, what’s going on?” he wanted to know, tugging on his master’s hand. “What sort of… alters did you meet in there?”

“See, Charlie was helpful,” Sherlock said to Lestrade instead.

Lestrade was not entirely buying it. “What about Dr. Bernard?” he directed at Indigo brusquely. “Respectable chap? Honest?”

“Not really the words I would use, no—“

“Did you ever see Simmerson kill a slave?” Sherlock demanded.

The answer was yes. But Indigo didn’t want to think about it. There were a lot of things in this house that he didn’t want to think about, and that was _after_ missing out on the worst ones, apparently.

“Indigo,” he heard Sherlock’s voice say, and felt his fingers gently caress his cheek. He blinked his eyes rapidly and saw that Lestrade had mysteriously jumped further down the hall and was talking on his mobile. Sherlock was still beside him on the bench, now giving him an encouraging look.

“What just happened?” Indigo wanted to know.

“Mmm, I think we were a little too pushy with our questions,” Sherlock conceded lightly.

“Yes, I would agree with that,” Indigo told him evenly. “Why were you asking me those things?”

Sherlock signaled to Lestrade down the hall. “It turns out that quite a lot was left out of the original police report,” he replied, “and you know how Lestrade feels about that sort of thing.”

“Yes,” Indigo agreed. Detective Inspector Lestrade was a good policeman, honest, thorough, and relentless, though Sherlock certainly would’ve preferred _brilliant_ to any one of those, even honest. Indigo did not like being under the man’s scrutiny, especially knowing how the law in general favored the free over slaves, but he knew that at least Lestrade would not arrest him just to cover up someone else’s crime. Assuming that someone else wasn’t attached to his own body, anyway.

“Sorry about that, Indigo,” Lestrade said as he returned. Indigo could tell he was impatient, and also more than irritated, though not necessarily at Indigo; but he put on a game face and smiled a little. “Just trying to figure out who we can trust around here.”

Indigo looked between him and Sherlock. “Do you mean me?” he guessed. He hardly trusted himself anymore. How could he, when he couldn’t even be certain of his own actions?

But Sherlock put his arm around Indigo and pulled him close. “No,” he asserted firmly, kissing his temple. The gesture was unexpected but appreciated. “Not you.”

“It’s been suggested that Dr. Bernard lied on death certificates for slaves here,” Lestrade went on, more temperately, “to cover up deaths that would otherwise have merited investigation.” He gave Indigo a stern look. “What do you think about that?”

“Well, yes,” Indigo replied, as if it should be obvious. “That happens at a lot of big houses…”

“But here, in particular,” Sherlock pressed, his arm still around Indigo. “Outright murder, covered up by Dr. Bernard?”

Indigo’s expression said yes. “I don’t want to testify about that,” he answered instead, looking between the two of them.

“No one’s asking you to,” Sherlock assured him. “We just want to know if slaves here actually feared for their lives under Simmerson.”

“Reasonably,” Lestrade added.

“Yes,” Indigo told them, and there was no mistaking the look in his eye.

“What about a slave named Star?” Lestrade questioned.

“Oh.” Indigo hadn’t thought of her in a long time.

“Indigo,” Sherlock prompted gently.

“No, I’m still here,” Indigo promised. “I was just—remembering.”

“She’s not in the household now,” Lestrade informed him.

“Oh? Really?” Indigo was glad of that, frankly. “Um… Simmerson liked her a lot, she was one of the favorites.”

“Along with you,” Sherlock had to add.

“I guess,” Indigo agreed, lukewarm on that subject. “She did often talk about how she would like to kill him”—Lestrade and Sherlock exchanged significant looks—“but that’s not uncommon, when slaves think it’s safe to talk.” He leaned his head shamelessly against Sherlock’s shoulder. “Could I go back to the room now?” he asked, trying not to plead. “I’m exhausted.”

“No wonder, you’ve done a lot already today,” Sherlock allowed, with a little too much enthusiasm. He stood and pulled Indigo up. “Come on then. Lestrade, I assume you’ve heard enough?”

He was already on his mobile again. “More than enough,” he agreed. “Oh, thanks, Indigo.”

The slave waved in acknowledgement, not able to do much more as Sherlock pulled him down the hall. They walked in silence, wary of being overheard, until they were back in their room with the door locked, and a chair under the knob.

Indigo pulled away from Sherlock and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “Tell me about the new alters,” he said.

Sherlock blinked at him. “You are markedly less subservient when there’s no one else around,” he observed. “Have you noticed that?”

“Yes. I’m surprised you haven’t.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Of course I _have_ , I just didn’t realize you were doing it consciously—“

“I know, it’s hard to tell these days,” Indigo agreed with a touch of bitterness. “Did you film them? Let me see.”

This time Sherlock had thought ahead and passworded the video as they walked along. “Mmm, I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he hedged.

“Why not?”

“Here, sit down and I’ll tell you about them—“

“Don’t patronize me!” Indigo snapped, and Sherlock stared at him. “Stop—don’t—“ Indigo seemed to be struggling to speak around his temper. “Stop looking for new alters,” he finally said, through gritted teeth. “It’s _me_.”

“You’re just acting rather strangely,” Sherlock noted, with a mix of fascination and alarm.

“Yes, I’ve been under a bit of stress lately,” Indigo replied, with deep sarcasm.

“Okay,” Sherlock acknowledged. He decided firmness was called for. “I’m not going to show you the video,” he stated. He didn’t think Indigo would handle it well in his current frame of mind. “But if you sit down, I will tell you about them.”

Indigo took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. His shoulders slumped as he moved towards the couch. Then, to Sherlock’s surprise, he knelt down in front of the couch instead of sitting on it. Sherlock thought about mentioning this. But Indigo _knew_ he could sit on the couch, and he deliberately chose not to. Gingerly Sherlock sat on the couch near him, and Indigo rested his head against his knee. For a moment they just sat there in silence, Sherlock slowly dragging his fingers through Indigo’s short, blond hair. Sherlock wondered if he was just going to fade out and maybe fall asleep. Not a very comfortable position for that.

“I have been badly behaved lately,” Indigo acknowledged finally. “I apologize.”

“It’s alright,” Sherlock said immediately, but this only made Indigo shake his head.

“It’s really _not_ alright,” he insisted.

“Hush,” Sherlock replied. “Don’t contradict your master.” Indigo bit his tongue. “If I say it’s alright, then you just have to live with that. That’s your punishment. Make a new, more easy-going personality if you can’t deal with it.”

Indigo’s head snapped up, saw Sherlock’s expression, and began to chuckle darkly. “That’s a terrible thing to say,” he judged.

“Is it?” Sherlock asked innocently. “I think you need to have a sense of humor about these things.”

“Do you _have_ a sense of humor?” Indigo accused lightly. “I hadn’t noticed it.”

“It’s very dry.” Indigo snorted. Sherlock patted the cushion beside him. “Come up here, would you?”

Slowly Indigo climbed up to the couch, far enough back to see Sherlock’s face, but still close enough to touch. “You ought to watch how I behave in front of others better,” he advised.

“What others?” Sherlock asked seriously. “You’ve been annoyingly submissive in front of the family members, I have to tell you to do every little thing.”

Only Sherlock would complain about such a thing. “Lestrade.”

Sherlock waved that off. “Lestrade,” he repeated dismissively. “I don’t care what _he_ thinks. And, he doesn’t care either.” Indigo shrugged, not really buying it. Oh, the first part he could believe easily enough, but not the second. “Alright, new alters,” Sherlock began briskly. “First, let’s revisit the issue of me having sex with your alters—“

“Uh, no,” Indigo sputtered.

“No, we can’t revisit it, or no, I can’t have sex with them?” Sherlock wanted to know.

“Both,” Indigo declared. Sherlock frowned, prepared to argue his case anyway. “No,” Indigo repeated. “My body already gets up to enough things I don’t know about,” he grumbled. “I don’t need to add having sex to the list.”

“It’s happened before,” Sherlock pointed out, indelicately. “Er, not with me, with other people,” he added quickly.

“I know,” Indigo assured him tightly. “When I was forced to have sex with people I didn’t like.”

“You like me,” Sherlock couldn’t help gloating, drawing his fingers down Indigo’s cheek. The slave rolled his eyes but also smiled faintly. “But what if this alter really, really wants to?” Sherlock persisted.

“They can take a cold shower,” Indigo decided with finality. “Who is this alter you’re so keen on, anyway? Don’t tell me he’s some kind of… seductive Lothario.”

“Mmm, I would’ve gone more with ‘sex kitten,’” Sherlock judged, and Indigo’s eyes widened. “There’s a difference, right? Sort of… charming and playful. Are kittens sexy? They’re just small cats, aren’t they?”

Indigo’s expression was a mix of confusion, disgust, and amusement. “I shudder to think what _you_ call charming and playful,” he finally said. “He’s not a necrophiliac or something, is he?”

“No,” Sherlock defended. “Saucy is very affectionate. And open-minded. And apparently not germ-phobic,” he added with a grimace.

“ _Saucy_?” Indigo repeated, with some indignation. “That’s his name?”

Belatedly Sherlock wondered if maybe he should’ve pressed for ‘Fred’ or something. “Well, he didn’t really have a name before,” he confessed, “and I wanted to call him something, and _he_ suggested it.” That was more or less what had happened.

“So I went into Simmerson’s bedroom,” Indigo reiterated, swallowing hard at the thought, “and a _sex kitten_ appeared?” He shuddered slightly. “G-d, no wonder he liked me.”

“Yes,” Sherlock had to agree, which from Indigo’s expression was not the correct thing to say. “Er, but I told Saucy he was only to flirt with _me_ from now on, not anyone else,” he informed Indigo, trying to sound strict, “and, well, he rather seems to like me, and was quite disappointed when I said I had to talk to you first—“

“I can’t believe you,” Indigo judged. “I mean, he _really_ hasn’t got anything _I_ haven’t got, and if you—“

“Are you jealous?” Sherlock grinned suddenly.

“No!”

“I think you are.” This amused Sherlock greatly and he pressed closer, even as Indigo leaned away with a prim expression. “You’re jealous of me and your alter.” He dropped a kiss on Indigo’s shoulder, the only thing he could reach. “Well, he’s definitely jealous of _you_. Because _you_ get to have sex with someone you like, and _he_ never has.”

Indigo froze. “Oh,” he said. “I hadn’t thought about it that way before.” He sounded far more pensive than Sherlock had been going for.

“Are you changing your mind?”

“No,” Indigo told him pointedly, just in case he was getting hopeful. They readjusted on the couch. “Tell me about the other alter. Charlie? Why doesn’t Lestrade like him?”

“Ah,” Sherlock replied unhelpfully, trying to think how to describe Charlie’s role.

“Just tell me,” Indigo requested, bracing himself.

“Charlie protected you by pleasing Simmerson, who would otherwise have killed you,” he tried.

“Sherlock.”

“By torturing other slaves for Simmerson’s entertainment.”

There was a long silence as Sherlock tried to read Indigo’s expression. “Oh,” he finally said. He started to stand. “I should, um—“

Sherlock took his arms and pulled him back down. “No, just sit here,” he instructed. He felt his cheek; it seemed very cold. “Indigo? It wasn’t your fault, Simmerson set it up, Charlie just appeared in response to—“

“It really—I did those things—“ Indigo was murmuring, half to himself.

Sherlock shook him a little. “No, you didn’t,” he insisted. “It wasn’t you, it was Charlie, and only because Simmerson—“

“No—I mean—“ Indigo looked up at him with wide blue eyes. “The things other slaves accused me of doing, why they hated me so much—I thought they were just being cruel, spreading awful rumors—they thought there was some _benefit_ to being his favorite, and they were jealous—“ Sherlock rubbed his arms, trying to find a way to sympathize, but his imagination wasn’t that good. Nor was his conscience. “But I really did them,” he concluded helplessly.

“No, it was—“ Sherlock started to correct again, but Indigo wrenched away from him and stood up.

“No,” he said. “No, you see?” Sherlock did not see. “No, those— _things_ , that people told me about, they were really _done_ , they weren’t just vicious rumors, they really happened and I really—“ He turned away suddenly.

Sherlock stood up behind Indigo and reached for him tentatively. Indigo flinched when he took his arms. “You were forced to,” Sherlock reminded him quietly, but Indigo was already shaking his head. “Forced to do it or die—“

“I should’ve died,” Indigo whispered, and Sherlock tightened his grip on him.

“Well _I_ wouldn’t have liked that very much,” he murmured into Indigo’s ear.

“You don’t know what I did,” Indigo countered, as if that would make a difference to Sherlock. He was certain it wouldn’t. “Unless—did Charlie tell you?” he asked tensely, turning in Sherlock’s arms. “Lestrade?” His expression was despairing.

“Nothing specific,” Sherlock assured him, if that could be called an assurance. “Just the general idea.” Indigo let Sherlock pull him closer into a limp embrace. “He didn’t _like_ it,” he conveyed, kissing Indigo’s temple. “He just had to pretend.”

“He did a very good job,” Indigo muttered against Sherlock’s chest.

“To save your life.”

“Sherlock, I was a soldier,” Indigo tried to explain to him. “I was prepared to _give up_ my life to save someone else. Someone I didn’t even know, a thousand miles away. How could I just…” He trailed off with a sigh.

“Yes, it _is_ interesting the alters let you join the Army,” Sherlock mused, trying to change the subject. “You’d think they would all be against having such a dangerous profession. You should’ve been a nice suburban orthodontist or something.”

Indigo chuckled against him, a slightly hysterical sound, and Sherlock rubbed his back. “I’m glad they let me make my own decisions about some things,” he said darkly.

Then Sherlock thought of a really brilliant analogy. “Oh, remember me telling you how I used to be a drug addict?” he said, in a cheerful tone those words should never be paired with. “It’s just like that!”

Indigo leaned back to stare at him. “What is?”

“I did lots of bad things while I was a drug addict!” Sherlock pointed out helpfully. “I stole evidence from Lestrade’s cases! Drugs, I mean.”

“ _What_?” said Indigo in a horrified tone.

“Oh yes,” Sherlock agreed, triumphant now at being able to relate. “That’s why his people don’t like me. That, and I point out their idiocy,” he tossed off. “Oh, and I used to steal things and sell them for drugs,” he went on blithely. “Mostly that was just to p—s off Mycroft, I actually had the money—“

“Sherlock, hang on,” Indigo interrupted. “Are you comparing your _voluntary_ drug habit stemming from your pathological need for stimulation, to my _involuntary_ mental disorder stemming from trauma going back to childhood?”

Somehow, it seemed like ‘no’ was the best answer here, but that was, in fact, what Sherlock was doing. “Yes, I’m trying to show you that I understand, and make you feel better,” he confirmed.

“Well it’s not working,” Indigo revealed. “Now I’m just thinking we should _both_ be locked up.”

“I don’t see why,” Sherlock frowned. “I’m clean.”

Indigo sighed heavily and dropped back to the couch, pulling Sherlock with him. For a while they just sat there, saying nothing. Then Indigo admitted, “Well, you _are_ taking this quite well. I appreciate that.”

“Of course.”

“You said there were five,” Indigo remembered after a moment. “UnderHim, SleepingHim, Saucy, Charlie, and--?”

“Oh, _Fury_ ,” Sherlock added gleefully. “He protects you during the day, like SleepingHim protects you at night. That’s what Charlie said.”

“Fury,” Indigo repeated dubiously. “Well he sounds charming.”

“I wonder where I can take you to bring him out,” Sherlock mused. “Seems like he would be a good one to talk to. Was there someplace you were often angry? Got into fights a lot?” Indigo made a noise that suggested Sherlock ought to refrain from following his path. “Well, I’ll think about it,” Sherlock decided. Indigo really wished he wouldn’t. But getting Sherlock not to think was nearly impossible.

**

Indigo went to bed early that night, while Sherlock sat up with Lestrade on the couch, talking over the case in hushed tones. Sherlock could not deny that he hoped Lestrade would get the chance to meet SleepingHim in person—not as a ‘party trick,’ as Indigo had accused, but because Sherlock found him fascinating, and he had a few questions to ask him as well. Sherlock kept an eagle eye on the lump of Indigo in the bed, waiting for it to start moving. Maybe SleepingHim wouldn’t appear if someone—other than Sherlock—was present, unless threatened; Indigo had slept in group dormitories many times, and couldn’t have been up acting weird all the time.

Just when Sherlock was about to give up and allow Lestrade to go back to his own room for the night, he saw Indigo move, then start to sit up. It was not his normal posture but something more alert, and Sherlock caught Lestrade’s eye and nodded behind him.

SleepingHim got up and went to the window first, making sure it was locked tight and there was nothing suspicious outside it. Then he turned to face the rest of the room, his eyes skipping over the two people on the couch to the door, which he also went to check. Sherlock had locked it but not put the chair in front of it, as he and Lestrade had been awake, but SleepingHim assiduously corrected this. Then he walked around to the bathroom and large closet. Finally he returned to face Sherlock on the couch. “The perimeter is secure,” he reported.

“Good, thank you,” Sherlock replied. “Sit with us.” SleepingHim settled down on the floor before them. “You remember me, don’t you, SleepingHim?” Sherlock checked cautiously.

“Yes.” His gaze turned to Lestrade, who found it unnerving.

“You know Lestrade?” Sherlock asked. Saucy and Charlie hadn’t shown much recognition of Lestrade, though he hadn’t explicitly asked.

“Yes.” SleepingHim’s tone was notably colder now.

Lestrade looked uncertainly at Sherlock. “Maybe I should go,” he suggested, but Sherlock stopped him.

“SleepingHim, if you know Lestrade, then you know he’s a friend,” Sherlock pointed out sternly.

“UnderHim says to be careful of the policeman,” SleepingHim reported warily.

“Well, UnderHim is wrong,” Sherlock snapped irritably, and SleepingHim blinked at him as if he’d never thought of such a thing before.

“No, he’s got a point,” Lestrade agreed slowly. “If I were to find evidence that Indigo, or any of you lot, had something to do with Simmerson’s death—“

“Which you won’t, because they didn’t,” Sherlock inserted fiercely.

“—but if I did,” Lestrade continued, gazing steadily at SleepingHim, “it would be my duty to arrest him.”

SleepingHim nodded slowly. “We all must do our duty,” he said, which seemed to indicate understanding of Lestrade’s position.

Sherlock seized on the chance to change the subject. “Is that why you let Indigo join the Army?” he asked. “Because you knew he wanted to do his duty?”

“I did not,” SleepingHim replied obtusely, and Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“UnderHim. Or all of you collectively,” he tried to clarify. “You could’ve prevented him from signing up, from taking on such a dangerous profession. But you didn’t. Why not?”

“Don’t know.”

“Sleepy, don’t be difficult,” Sherlock chided. “We had a nice conversation last night, at least _try_.”

SleepingHim said nothing, but just cocked his head to one side. “Is he gone?” Lestrade asked after a long moment.

“No, he’s listening to UnderHim,” Sherlock corrected.

“UnderHim says,” SleepingHim finally responded, “that you are right. _He_ wanted to help people, _he_ can handle that sort of danger, and _he_ is smart. So he became a doctor in the Army.” He paused a moment. “UnderHim says, if it was possible to foresee that he would become a slave, we would have stopped him.”

“Understandable.”

“How would you have stopped him?” Lestrade wanted to know. “Can you control what Indigo does, as himself?” That would be an important piece of information, he felt.

“I cannot,” SleepingHim denied simply.

“I’ll tell you what _I_ would do,” Sherlock shared, when there seemed to be nothing more forthcoming. “I’d get him drunk. It wouldn’t take much to make him walk into a bar and down a few drinks, maybe start a fight. He’d get arrested, and that wouldn’t look very impressive to the Army.”

“UnderHim says that would be a good plan,” SleepingHim agreed.

Lestrade stared at Sherlock. “Do you think about that kind of thing often?” he asked, clearly finding it weird.

Sherlock shrugged. “Lately, yes.” He turned back to SleepingHim. “Are you cold? Do you want to sit up here?”

“No,” he denied. “I will use a blanket, though,” he added, and Sherlock handed him the one lying on the back of the couch and waited while he wrapped it around himself fussily.

“We met two alters today,” Sherlock told him eagerly. “In Simmerson’s bedroom. Saucy and Charlie. Do you know them?”

“UnderHim says Saucy says he likes his new name you gave him,” SleepingHim conveyed, by way of response.

“I can’t believe you all called him ‘the dirty little slut,’ that’s quite mean,” Sherlock rebuked him.

SleepingHim shrugged. “Our names have never been important before,” he noted. “There was no one to know them.”

Sherlock could see his point. “Charlie was very informative when he spoke to us. Wasn’t he, Lestrade?” he prodded.

“Well, yes,” Lestrade admitted grudgingly. “Seems there’s quite a lot of nasty secrets in this house.”

“There are nasty secrets everywhere,” SleepingHim corrected pessimistically.

“I can see how it would look that way to you,” Lestrade agreed. “My wife says the same thing about me sometimes. Everywhere I go, I’m looking for the criminals.”

“We look for those who will hurt _him_ ,” SleepingHim nodded. “They are everywhere.”

“Except…?” Sherlock had to prompt, interrupting their bonding session. “With me, you’re supposed to say with me,” he told SleepingHim, who just blinked at him. “You weren’t needed with me until now. You’re making me look bad, Sleepy,” he complained, when the alter stayed silent. Sherlock was quite proud that his treatment of Indigo had not merited an alter’s intervention before now and wanted it acknowledged again.

“UnderHim says you are safe,” SleepingHim finally revealed. “We all agree. And UnderHim says Saucy says he would very much like to kiss you.” This was conveyed in a completely flat, unenthusiastic tone.

“Well, Indigo says he can’t, so, sorry,” Sherlock sent back, still a bit peeved about this himself. It wasn’t every day you got a chance like this, after all. “But Saucy’s not to kiss anyone else, that would upset Indigo,” he warned.

SleepingHim nodded. “Saucy knows. But UnderHim says Saucy likes you very much,” he went on. “And Charlie likes you, too.”

Lestrade snorted at the worth of this. “Better than the opposite,” Sherlock noted. “What about Fury?” he probed. “I heard Fury protects Indigo during the day like you protect him at ni—what’s wrong?” SleepingHim was squirming uncomfortably.

“We are not the same,” he protested. “Fury and I. I watch and wait with patience. I defend when attacked.”

“And what does Fury do?” Sherlock questioned.

“He reacts with anger,” SleepingHim said in a foreboding tone.

“I want to talk to him.”

“UnderHim says you should not,” SleepingHim countered. “You should not try to wake Fury.”

“Isn’t UnderHim in charge?” Lestrade pressed, with some concern. “Doesn’t UnderHim say who’s needed when, and what they do?”

“We make decisions,” SleepingHim replied, which sounded like he was saying ‘no.’ “When Fury is unleashed he is hard to control.”

Sherlock and Lestrade exchanged a glance. ‘Hard to control’ sounded like someone who might get caught up in murder. “Well, let me talk to UnderHim, then,” Sherlock requested.

SleepingHim shook his head. “He will not come. I am needed now.”

“Bother,” Sherlock muttered. He tried to remember what else he wanted to ask. “Is Charlie the youngest alter?” SleepingHim gave him a confused look. “I mean the most recently made.”

“He was first needed here,” SleepingHim seemed to confirm.

“Made _your_ job tougher, eh?” Lestrade suggested. SleepingHim shrugged, as if that didn’t matter.

“Saucy said he was with Simmerson the night he died,” Sherlock said, never sure what the alters knew of each other’s activities. “He’d had a fight with Sir James. After Saucy wasn’t needed anymore, did you take over? When Indigo was back in his room?”

“I guard him while he sleeps,” SleepingHim answered vaguely.

“I hope we don’t have to put this guy on a witness stand,” Lestrade commented.

Sherlock waved him off. “Oh, he’s fine. Hey, Sleepy, I’ve got an idea,” he went on, and SleepingHim looked at him attentively. “How would you like to write Indigo a note? I read about this in the treatment guides,” he added to Lestrade. “It helps the alters communicate with their host.”

“A note?” SleepingHim cocked his head to one side, listening to UnderHim’s advice. “Alright.”

This pleased Sherlock and he handed his phone over. “Here, you can send him a text. Or an email, if you have more to say. What?”

SleepingHim was holding the mobile like it was some kind of foreign object. “Mmm, pen and paper would be better,” he decided, returning the phone to Sherlock.

“Why?” he asked blankly.

“We know how to use them,” SleepingHim responded, which did seem like a pretty good reason.

“You don’t know how to use a mobile?” Sherlock had to ask, scathingly, as he hunted for pen and paper.

“Here, I’ve got it,” Lestrade offered, pulling a small notebook from his pocket.

“Learning technology is not our purpose,” SleepingHim replied, a bit defensively. “UnderHim says he knows, but you would get impatient waiting for me to be told.”

“He’s got _you_ down,” Lestrade observed to Sherlock, handing SleepingHim a blank piece of paper and a pen.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Okay, _first thing_ , you’re all going to learn to use Indigo’s mobile,” he decreed, “in case you have to call me in an emergency. And you’re going to memorize some phone numbers and addresses.”

SleepingHim nodded with some eagerness. “Preparation is important,” he agreed. Then he knelt at the side table next to Sherlock, holding the small piece of paper down flat, the pen in his hand like a dagger.

“Is that—“ It was hard for Sherlock not to intervene. “Is that how you hold a pen?”

“I don’t write much,” SleepingHim pointed out. He seemed open to advice however, so Sherlock took the pen and demonstrated the proper way to hold it. SleepingHim watched with rapt attention and even let Sherlock touch him—briefly—to adjust his own grip.

“There you go,” Sherlock encouraged. “How are you going to start your note? Maybe with Indigo’s name, so he knows it’s for him?”

SleepingHim gave this some thought. _YOU_ , he printed in wobbly black letters, adding a colon afterwards.

“This is going to be epic,” Sherlock predicted to Lestrade.

“That’s nice,” Sherlock told him, thoroughly amused.

_WATCH OUT FOR SPIDERS._

“Watch out for spiders,” Sherlock repeated in confusion. He glanced over at the bed with a grimace. “Are there spiders in here?”

“I haven’t seen any,” SleepingHim assured him. “But _he_ should watch out.”

“Okay.”

_I HAVE A KNIFE UNDER THE PILLOW._

“Where did you get a knife?” Sherlock demanded, slightly alarmed.

“For protection,” SleepingHim demurred. Then he printed his name, hesitated, and underneath it added _SLEEPY_ , which made Sherlock smile a little. They seemed to like getting names from him. And it did not escape Sherlock’s notice that Sleepy’s writing was much like a child’s, perhaps reflecting the age when he was first needed.

Sherlock thought he was done, but then Sleepy pursed his lips in concentration and continued working on the bottom of the paper. “What are you writing?” Sherlock intruded. “Are you drawing? That’s cute. What are you drawing?” Sleepy finished and handed him the note with satisfaction. Sherlock’s lips twitched and he showed it to Lestrade. The drawing was a little knife dripping blood.

“That is creepy as h—l,” Lestrade judged succinctly.

“Oh, I think it shows personality,” Sherlock replied indulgently. He wasn’t exactly a sweetness-and-light kind of person himself, after all—he hunted criminals for a living, the weirder the better.

Sherlock gave the note back to Sleepy. “Very good. Where shall we put it, where Indigo will see?” Maybe with a slight delay, so he could give Indigo some warning first.

“In my pocket?” Sleepy suggested, indicating the pocket of his pajama pants.

“Alright,” Sherlock agreed, watching him carefully fold the note. “Why do pajamas even _have_ pockets?” he complained, randomly, because Sleepy was a slow folder.

“For carrying things,” Sleepy answered simply, and Lestrade chuckled.

“He’s got you there,” he claimed.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “What sort of things could you possibly need to carry in your _pajamas_?” he protested rhetorically.

“A grenade,” Sleepy replied.

“Well, I’m off,” Lestrade decided, standing.

“Let’s not carry grenades in our pajamas anymore, alright?” Sherlock advised Sleepy with some nervousness. “You haven’t _got_ any grenades, have you?”

“No. Should I get some?”

“ _No_.”

“’Night, Sherlock,” Lestrade said from the door. He gave Sleepy a stern look. “You gonna lock this back up when I leave?”

“Yes.” Sleepy scrambled after him.

“Alright. ‘Night, Sleepy.” Somehow he was not surprised to get no response, except the door shutting and locking almost on his heels.

Sleepy replaced the chair, then went to check the window again. He stood beside it silently, staring out into the night for longer than Sherlock thought was necessary.

“Are you going to be here for a while?” Sherlock finally asked him.

“There is a dog,” Sleepy replied, nodding out the window.

“I don’t think he’s going to climb up here.”

Sleepy turned back to him with what Sherlock interpreted as a mildly peeved look. “I must be vigilant,” he stated, returning to the couch. “It’s my purpose.”

“Your purpose is also talking to _me_ ,” Sherlock reminded him briskly. “Sit here.” Sleepy perched on the edge of the couch. “Now, you are going to learn how to use a mobile,” he decided firmly, pulling his out.

“UnderHim knows—“

“No, _you_ ,” Sherlock corrected. “ _All_ of the alters. That’s the point of an emergency, you need to act _now_ and not be translating things through UnderHim all the time. I will be drilling you on this,” he warned seriously. “Do you understand?” Sleepy nodded with wide eyes. “You’re not alone anymore,” he added in a gentler tone. “You can call me, and you can call my—friends. Only, if you’ve done something illegal, don’t call Lestrade,” he advised, scrolling through his contacts list.

“He must do his duty,” Sleepy agreed.

“And you must do yours. Here’s how you input a number…”

**

Sherlock awoke slowly to a pleasant sensation, and his hand drifted down to brush Indigo’s hair, landing on his shoulder. For perhaps obvious reasons Indigo had not really been in an amorous mood since they’d arrived here, but evidently that was finally changing. Sherlock gave a soft moan of approval.

And heard a giggle in return.

His eyes popped open in the dark. He was not fool enough to jerk away in his present situation, but he gave the shoulder a firm squeeze. “Saucy,” he commanded, hoping his tone sounded stern enough. Because Saucy was awfully good at what he was doing. “Saucy, stop. Right now.”

Saucy stopped and Sherlock felt a tinge of regret. The alter scooted up face to face with a big grin and tried to kiss Sherlock instead. Sherlock’s resolve weakened momentarily, but then he took Saucy’s upper arms and pushed him back. Saucy was still smiling—Sherlock got the sense his purpose included smiling through almost anything, and that almost made him want to pull the alter back against him.

“Hello!” Saucy said brightly.

“Saucy, we’ve talked about this,” Sherlock replied, letting a cold edge creep into his voice.

He saw the smile falter for a moment, and it hurt. “I thought maybe you would like a surprise,” Saucy claimed optimistically.

Maybe this alter was not so charming, if he was going to ignore Sherlock’s most basic orders. “You knew I wouldn’t,” he countered, not letting him squirm away.

“You _didn’t_ like it?” Saucy tried once more.

“I would’ve liked it if you were Indigo,” Sherlock told him steadily, and he recognized the flicker of pain that crossed his face. “Or if Indigo gave his permission for us to do this. But he didn’t. I’ve told you this before,” he went on, finally letting him go. “I expect you to obey me.”

“Oh, but we could do lots of nice things together—“ Saucy insisted, trying to scoot closer, and Sherlock stopped him.

“No. Not if Indigo says no.”

“But that’s what I’m here for!” Saucy replied, suddenly in distress. “ _He_ says no, and then _I_ am needed to—“

“Saucy, I wasn’t forcing Indigo to do anything, I was _asleep_ —“ And Sherlock didn’t much appreciate being compared to the people Saucy usually dealt with.

The alter burst into tears, which was rather disconcerting for Sherlock, especially since it was on Indigo’s face. “What about _me_?!” he wailed, and Sherlock tried to shush him. “Won’t I ever get to be with someone nice? That’s all I want, just to be with someone nice like you—“ He threw himself facedown into the pillow and sobbed.

Sherlock sighed, but restrained himself from reaching out to comfort him, which would only send a mixed message. He saw his point. For his whole existence Saucy appeared when Indigo was about to be raped, and turned the tables so it seemed like he was enjoying whatever was done to him. It was not much of a life, however useful it was to Indigo. Sherlock did not flatter himself as particularly desirable—he had been shunned by the world far too often for that—but he knew he was far better in behavior than the people Saucy usually met, and it seemed reasonable that the alter might long for genuine affection, unaccompanied by anything unpleasant.

“Saucy,” Sherlock said softly. “You know I care about you, as part of Indigo—“ This only made him sob harder, a little overdone Sherlock thought. “But if I didn’t respect Indigo’s wishes, I would be as bad as the people you usually served. How do you think Indigo would feel about that?” Furious, betrayed, unforgiving came to mind.

“What about how _I_ feel?!” Saucy demanded. “Nobody ever asks how _I_ feel!”

Sherlock judged he was being deliberately uncooperative now. “Saucy, you’re being irrational, why don’t you go to sleep and let Indigo—“

“Oh you just want _him_ , everyone thinks they want _him_ but _I_ do all the dirty work—“

“What? No,” Sherlock told him. “We’ve never met before today, and I resent being referred to as ‘dirty work’—“

Saucy gasped. “Don’t yell at me! I don’t like being yelled at!”

Sherlock sighed heavily and rubbed his face tiredly. He was not adept at dealing with emotional outbursts of any kind. Fortunately Indigo in his normal state presented very few.

He gave into the temptation to attempt soothing. “Alright, Saucy, just calm down,” he said in a gentle tone, imagining he was dealing with a wounded animal. Wait, he usually stayed well away from wounded animals. “Come here and we can sleep, really sleep—“

“You’re so _insensitive_!” this led Saucy to huff, for reasons completely incomprehensible to Sherlock, and then he vanished, metaphorically swirling away in a puff of smoke.

For a moment there was nothing, as if no one had been prepared to go on stage so soon, and then Indigo was back. He took in their mutual states of undress and the residual tears leaking from his eyes and made the only sensible response. “Sherlock, what the f—k?!”

“I can explain,” Sherlock rushed to assure him.

“You d—n well better!”

This was not very subservient, but Sherlock let it pass. “Saucy was just here—“ he began.

“Why?” Indigo interrupted suspiciously.

Sherlock gestured between them defensively. “Well, obvious reasons,” he insisted. “ _I_ didn’t summon him, _I_ was asleep!”

“Oh, you’re telling me my alter just popped up in the middle of the night and tried to jump you,” Indigo surmised with deep sarcasm, pulling his pajama pants back on.

“That’s what happened!” Sherlock protested. “I told him no, I was very firm about—“

“Oh, I can see that.”

Sherlock glared and pulled his own pajama bottoms up. “I told you, I turned him down,” he repeated through gritted teeth. “Do you not believe me now?”

Indigo was not prepared to go that far. “Well, why am I crying?” he wanted to know, swiping roughly at his eyes.

“Saucy was crying because I said no—“

“You made him _cry_?” Indigo sounded slightly horrified by this.

“Well, I suppose the causation was—“ Sherlock cut himself off when he saw Indigo’s unimpressed look. “I wasn’t _mean_ about it,” he maintained, slightly taken aback by the idea. “I wouldn’t be _mean_ to your alters—“

“I imagine that’s open to interpretation!”

Sherlock let out a noise of frustration. “This is insane!” he snapped. “ _You’re_ the one who said no, I was just trying to—“ Indigo’s stricken expression stopped him.

“It _is_ insane, isn’t it?” he repeated slowly, and Sherlock heartily regretted his choice of words.

“Indigo, I didn’t mean—“

“No, you’re right.” What Sherlock was right about, he could no longer be certain; but Indigo lay back down quietly. “Saucy was actually _crying_ because you wouldn’t have sex with him?” he checked after a moment. Sherlock nodded. “Well, I guess that’s understandable,” he judged, then looked up to give Sherlock a faint smile.

Sherlock relaxed a little and leaned closer to Indigo. “He’s used to having sex with very unpleasant people,” he pointed out.

Indigo’s hand drifted over to play with Sherlock’s dark hair. “Yeah, I know.” Well, of course he did, because they always started with _him_. “Would _you_ like to have sex with Saucy?”

“Yes.”

“No hesitation there,” Indigo teased.

Sherlock frowned. “Was I supposed to say something else?” he asked. That sort of thing always confused him.

“Nah,” Indigo allowed. “I guess… I don’t know, maybe they deserve some kind of reward for helping me out all this time,” he suggested lightly.

Sherlock was still not sure if they were on the same page. “Is sex with me the reward?”

“Well, alright,” Indigo agreed. “If you want to. But you have to tell me about it,” he insisted to Sherlock as the other man grinned.

“In graphic detail,” Sherlock promised, pressing closer. He was pleased Indigo trusted him this much. It would be an excellent method of research—and, well, let’s not pretend there weren’t more carnal desires at work here, too.

Indigo diverted him from a kiss to a hug, though. “But not tonight,” he ruled, settling in against Sherlock. “In this house… I couldn’t. Plus I’m exhausted.”

“They seem to think you aren’t physically taxed when they act,” Sherlock noted, holding him carefully. “I would like to test this.”

“Later,” Indigo deferred with a yawn.

“Oh, SleepingHim was up earlier, he spoke with Lestrade,” Sherlock added, not wanting to keep any information from Indigo now. “Did you know, he didn’t know how to use a mobile?” he went on in disgust. “I made him practice, and memorize some numbers. I’m going to train all of them, so they know what to do in an emergency—“

Indigo snickered against him. “That’s charming,” he judged sleepily. “And completely mad.”

“Safety first,” Sherlock murmured in his ear.

“That’s your motto, is it?” Indigo shifted slightly and something crinkled. “What the—“ He started to fish in his pocket. “Why do I have—“

Sherlock’s eyes widened. “Um, hmm, maybe you should not look at that,” he suggested hurriedly. He should have realized this would have the opposite of his intended effect on Indigo, however, as the slave lost whatever pleasant haze he was drifting into. With a narrow look at Sherlock, Indigo retrieved the crumpled piece of paper and rolled away to switch on the bedside lamp.

“What the h—l is this?” he asked, mystified.

Sherlock leaned over his shoulder. “I had SleepingHim write you a note,” he explained with forced brightness. “To facilitate communication between the alters and the host.”

“I’m the host, am I?” Indigo surmised without enthusiasm. “ _You: Hello. Watch out for spiders_ ,” he read dryly. “ _I have a knife under the pillow_.”

Sherlock thought to reach, carefully, under Indigo’s pillow. “Oh look, he does,” he noted, holding the steak knife out for Indigo to see. “Must’ve filched it from the dinner tray.”

“Signed, SleepingHim. Sleepy,” Indigo added in confusion.

“That’s a nickname I just gave him,” Sherlock explained eagerly. “They like getting names from me.”

“Oh, it’s like you have a whole bunch of new pets,” Indigo deadpanned. “Combined with a harem.”

Sherlock could not see his expression very well from this angle. “Are you upset?” he was forced to ask.

Indigo was holding the note up to the light. “Remarkably, no,” he admitted. “Why is the knife dripping blood, that’s what I want to know.”

“Symbol of his willingness to protect you,” Sherlock interpreted. “I’m putting the knife back under the pillow, don’t cut yourself on it.”

“Spiders. Watch out for spiders,” Indigo muttered in confusion. “What does that even mean?”

“He said there weren’t spiders in _here_ ,” Sherlock replied, for all the help _that_ was. “Maybe he just doesn’t like spiders.”

Indigo rolled over abruptly to face Sherlock, forcing him to scoot back. “You’re not just messing with me, are you?” he asked suspiciously, waggling the note at him.

“What? No.” Sherlock was affronted by this suggestion. “It’s in your handwriting.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well, your block printing,” he corrected.

“No, it’s not,” Indigo repeated. “I’ll show you. Well, in the morning,” he amended, yawning again.

Sherlock took the note from him and held it up to the lamp himself, reaching over Indigo to do so. “It’s not?”

“No. Shut off the light, would you?” Indigo curled up against Sherlock’s chest.

“You and the alters have different handwriting,” Sherlock realized, transfixed. “Handwriting is the result of training, experience, personality—much of which differs among you. That’s _brilliant_!” he declared.

“Can it be less brilliant, please?” Indigo requested pointedly, and Sherlock took the hint and turned off the light, tucking Sleepy’s note under Indigo’s mobile on the nightstand. He tried to settle down but his mind was buzzing now—somehow the handwriting thing completely inspired him.

“I’ll get a notebook they can all write in,” he planned aloud. “I wonder if they have different talents. Can you draw?”

“Sherlock.”

“Alright, sorry.” He tried to be still and quiet, though this was tedious. “SleepingHim said, if they’d known you would become a slave, they would’ve stopped you from joining the Army. That would’ve prevented at least two alters—“

“Master, shall I go sleep on the couch?” Indigo asked, managing to sound sleepy and sarcastic at the same time. “I don’t want to disturb your monologue.”

Sherlock tightened his arms around him. “No, I’ll be quiet,” he promised. Indigo snorted disbelievingly.

**

When Sherlock next awoke, dawn was creeping in through the window, and someone was calling his name softly. “What?” he mumbled irritably.

“Sherlock. That’s a funny name.”

“So’s Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

“Oh, you guessed without even looking,” Charlie praised obnoxiously. “You _are_ clever.”

Sherlock finally opened his eyes, squinting at the alter who looked down on him. “Go away,” he decided, curling back up in the blankets. “I’m not having sex with you.”

Charlie hooted with laughter, an unpleasantly shrill sound. Their laughs were different, too. “UnderHim said Saucy was really p----d off at you,” this reminded him, and he conveyed it with relish.

Sherlock decided finally that he had to face him and shook himself awake. “Well, G-d, I was just trying to show a little integrity,” he grumbled. For some reason he felt comfortable saying this to Charlie, who snorted.

“Integrity is lost on Saucy,” he declared snottily. “Surely _that’s_ obvious?”

“You have that in common, then,” Sherlock shot back, and Charlie laughed again, a slightly mad sound. Sherlock could imagine it echoing in his victims’ heads, giving them nightmares.

Charlie waved SleepingHim’s note at Sherlock. “What’s this head case up to, then? ‘Watch out for spiders’? What does that even mean?” he asked derisively.

Sherlock snatched the note away from him angrily. “That’s not yours,” he pointed out. “Don’t bother things that aren’t yours.” Charlie kind of rubbed him the wrong way, too.

“Yes, Master,” Charlie mocked, as Sherlock tucked the note carefully away. “Grouchy when you don’t get your nap, aren’t you?”

Sherlock sighed and shifted to a more comfortable position. He had to remind himself to appreciate _all_ the alters—they were part of Indigo and had kept him safe. “Please convey my apologies to Saucy,” he requested, more civilly.

“No need,” Charlie claimed breezily. “UnderHim already told us sex with you was now allowed, so you’ll be fighting him off pretty soon. He doesn’t hold a grudge for long, he’s just a drama queen,” he added reassuringly.

“Figured,” Sherlock agreed. “So what are you doing here, Charlie?” He kind of hoped _he_ didn’t want to have sex—Sherlock had a feeling Charlie’s amorous escapades would involve whips and chains, and he didn’t trust him enough to participate in that yet.

Charlie laughed like he knew what Sherlock was thinking. “Relax,” he advised. “UnderHim said we need to focus on _him_ and getting out of this place, not the novelty of getting a leg over with you.”

“Was that an exact quote?” Charlie chortled negatively. “Doesn’t UnderHim control who uses the body?” Sherlock questioned more seriously. “Why did he send Saucy last night?” He wondered if it had been meant as a test.

“UnderHim _thinks_ he’s the gatekeeper. Such a controlling wanker,” Charlie described disdainfully. “But sometimes he just sits back and lets us do what we feel like. Apparently Saucy’d been bugging him non-stop to see you again. And you broke his widdle heart,” he added mockingly.

“Stop,” Sherlock told him, unamused. “It was the right thing to do. I had to think of Indigo first. Anyway, it led to him changing his mind about the sex, so there’s no problem. Now what are you doing here?”

“Oh, I’ve got a message for you, from UnderHim,” Charlie tossed off casually, and Sherlock sat up alertly. “He was just going to text you—fancy teaching old Sleepy to use a mobile—but he thought you wouldn’t like him touching things.” He said this obnoxiously and Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“You’re going to learn, too, if you don’t know,” Sherlock warned him. “It’s a matter of safety. Why are _you_ bringing this message?”

“Who else is there?” Charlie asked rhetorically. “Saucy would get _distracted_. UnderHim rarely come out for anything, Sleepy is a vampire and won’t come out during the day, and Fury—well.” He whistled ominously.

“I want to know more about Fury,” Sherlock pressed. “He might have information I need.”

“He’s a blunt instrument,” Charlie dismissed. “Angry fellow. Hence the name.” He stopped talking and gave Sherlock an expectant look.

Sherlock sighed. “Alright, what’s the message?”

“UnderHim says…” Charlie made a show of repeating the words exactly. “’Take another look at the physical evidence.’”

Sherlock froze. “Which evidence, specifically?”

Charlie laughed at him. “Look at you! Always protesting our innocence, but deep down in there”—he tapped Sherlock’s chest—“you think maybe we really _did_ do it.”

“I don’t care if you did it,” Sherlock vowed, grabbing his hand. “Knowing what I know now, if Simmerson was still alive I would find a way to ruin him myself. Death is too good for him.”

Charlie gazed at him. “I think you mean that,” he noted, just a tiny bit amazed.

“I do,” Sherlock assured him. Charlie scooted closer, their hands still entwined. “But if there’s evidence against you, I need to know about it.”

“What would you do?” Charlie asked, with gleeful conspiracy. “Destroy it?” Sherlock just gazed at him steadily. Some things did not need to be said aloud. “Anyway, UnderHim didn’t mean anything _specific_ ,” Charlie finally revealed, and Sherlock relaxed. “He just remembers seeing the police cart loads of boxes out of the old man’s room after his death. Considering how sloppy they were with the rest of the report, who knows what they missed there?” Sherlock rolled away to grab his phone and began texting Lestrade. “Maybe that handsome policeman already thought of that,” Charlie allowed teasingly.

“Is Indigo attracted to Lestrade?” Sherlock tried to ask this casually, but Charlie hooted in response.

“G-d, multiple personalities trying to get in your pants, and you’re _still_ jealous,” he accused with amusement.

“I’m not _jealous_ ,” Sherlock insisted. Still, Lestrade’s sleepy, confused response text left him growling in frustration more than usual. “Why is the man so dense? The evidence collected when he died,” he muttered, texting back a clarification. “I’m just _curious_ ,” he claimed to Charlie.

Charlie made a noise of sarcastic acknowledgement, but then decided to answer. “Oh, _he_ has eyes only for _you_ ,” he promised Sherlock, mockingly so it must be true. “Ever since you cured his leg.”

Sherlock blinked in surprise. “Really? That soon?”

Charlie nodded indulgently. “Eight years we lived with that agony,” he reminded Sherlock. “And you cured it in one evening. Poof!”

Sherlock thought this over. “It was just psychosomatic pain, wasn’t it?” Charlie nodded. “So it was just in his head.”

“His head’s rather crowded,” Charlie noted dryly.

“Couldn’t you have just… switched it off?” Sherlock suggested. From the way Charlie rolled his eyes, he supposed not.

“It’s rather more difficult to work with him than you seem to think,” he explained snottily. “Especially when he _wants_ to be in pain.” Sherlock raised an eyebrow at this. “But whenever one of _us_ took over, we switched it off,” he acknowledged. “We’re none of us martyrs.”

Sherlock’s phone beeped and he glanced down to see Lestrade promising to look over the evidence again. “’In the morning,’” Sherlock read aloud, with confusion. “What’s he talking about? It _is_ morning.” He put his phone back on the nightstand.

“Are you getting up now?” Charlie wanted to know.

“No,” Sherlock denied, burrowing back under the covers. “This is the second time one of you has woken me up since I went to bed last night.”

Charlie smirked and scooted down under the blankets next to him. “Next time I’ll use the Saucy method,” he promised cheekily.

“Do you want to come here,” Sherlock offered, opening his arms a little.

He had the pleasure of seeing Charlie look genuinely startled and slightly flustered. “Um, I thought you said we _weren’t_ having sex?” he tried.

“I’m not offering sex,” Sherlock noted matter-of-factly. “Just sleeping.”

“Shall we cuddle?” Charlie asked obnoxiously, but there was something off about it.

“Do you not like being touched?” Sherlock guessed. “It’s alright, SleepingHim doesn’t—“

“No, it’s fine,” Charlie said sharply, and Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Not usually my department,” he finally admitted, still trying to sound flippant.

“Well we’ll take it slow,” Sherlock deadpanned.

With a sigh, as though this was an onerous duty, Charlie squirmed up against Sherlock’s chest, bumping him a few times until he got settled. “G-d, I’m going to suffocate,” he claimed unromantically.

Sherlock did not take offense, he’d had to get used to it as well. “You can turn over if you want,” he suggested.

“Don’t really like people at my back,” Charlie admitted.

“Well, here, move your head a little, and put your arm here,” Sherlock advised. “Better?”

“Passable. Might not suffocate.”

“It’s not an order, you know.”

“I’ll get used to it,” Charlie allowed.

Whatever. That was Sherlock’s final thought on the matter. “Fine. Goodnight.”

“’Night.”

**

 _Come to our room NOW alone_ , was the text Lestrade received later that day, and he broke off interviewing recalcitrant kitchen slaves to hurry to Sherlock’s room, hoping he wasn’t just being overdramatic again. He found the door locked and knocked discreetly; after a moment it opened an inch and Sherlock peered out at him. Then he opened it a few more inches, barely enough to let Lestrade squeeze through, and locked it hurriedly behind him.

Lestrade didn’t bother to ask what all the fuss was about—he could see for himself. Directly across from the door, above the fireplace, the words _ASK ME_ had been written on the wall in dripping red. Below them there was a fist-sized fracture in the wall, cracks spidering out in all directions. A chair lay broken in a pile, smashed to pieces. And Indigo was sitting on the floor, wedged into a corner between the bed and the nightstand, curled into the tightest possible ball he could. He shivered and twitched slightly, and around one hand a bandage had been wrapped.

Lestrade no longer wondered if Sherlock was being overdramatic. In fact, it might be impossible to be overdramatic in this situation.

“He was asleep, so I thought it would be alright to leave for a little while,” Sherlock began, tone slightly defensive as Lestrade took a closer look at the message on the wall. “I locked the door behind me and was only gone for twenty minutes or so.”

“Is this ketchup?” Lestrade asked of the red writing, finding himself somewhat relieved.

“Yes, it came on the lunch tray,” Sherlock agreed. “ _That’s_ blood, though.” He pointed to the reddish smudges where someone’s fist had pounded into the wall.

Well, Indigo’s fist. But wielded by someone else.

“Fury?” Lestrade guessed, and Sherlock nodded.

“Obviously he wants to talk to me,” he noted. “All the alters have warned me off him, though. Apparently he got impatient.” His gaze strayed to Indigo.

“That’s not him, is it?” Lestrade checked.

“No, that’s Indigo,” Sherlock assured him. “He’s upset.” Lestrade shook his head at the understatement. That surely couldn’t begin to cover it.

Sherlock approached the slave cautiously, Lestrade following behind. “Indigo.” He knelt down and tried to touch him, but Indigo jerked away. “Indigo, it’s alright. Lestrade’s here.”

Lestrade would not have thought his presence would be that comforting, but he knelt down as well. “Indigo? You alright, mate?”

Head still buried in his arms, Indigo shook it emphatically. “Shh, it’s alright,” Sherlock claimed, pressing closer more assertively. Indigo did not have room to back away farther but seemed determined to try.

Lestrade got a hand at the back of the slave’s head before he could snap it into the wooden nightstand. “We should get him onto the couch,” he advised Sherlock, who nodded.

“Indigo, come on, let’s move to the couch,” Sherlock persuaded, rubbing his upper arms. Indigo did not want to.

“You bandaged his hand?” Lestrade checked. He let the fingers that still held Indigo’s head scritch through his hair, though normally he wouldn’t pet someone else’s slave like that.

Sherlock nodded. “Indigo, you can zone out, it’s—“

“No,” Indigo replied wetly, finally looking up. His face was streaked with tears. “I don’t know—what will happen if I—I might hurt—“ He broke off miserably.

“He’s afraid of hurting me,” Sherlock explained briskly. “But it wouldn’t be _you_ , it would be—“ This was not a comfort to Indigo. “Anyway Lestrade’s here now.” He gave the policeman a pointed look.

“Yeah, it’s alright,” Lestrade reassured him. “We won’t let anything happen.” Though to be honest he was not wild about trying to take down whoever had turned that chair into kindling.

“Come _on_ , Indigo,” Sherlock insisted, more forcefully, and finally drew him unwillingly to his feet. Together they stumbled to the couch and dropped down heavily on it. Lestrade could see how Indigo wanted to cling to Sherlock, but at the same time was afraid to relax too much, in case something else took the opportunity to appear. He’d always liked Indigo, honestly, found him sensible and level-headed, in sharp contrast to Sherlock when he was being dramatic and out of touch. He hadn’t realized until this grim trip how close they were, though, which embarrassed him a little. He was supposed to be able to notice that sort of thing, he felt, as part of his job.

“Shh, just close your eyes,” Sherlock pressed, wrapping his arms around Indigo’s tense body. “Just close your eyes and go out—“

“What if—what if he comes back?” Indigo asked brokenly. He might never sleep again.

“I _want_ him to come back,” Sherlock insisted, perhaps unwisely. “I want to talk to him.” Lestrade did not like Fury’s chances against his cold tone.

Indigo twisted in his arms. “Sherlock—“

“He’s got something to say and I want to know what it is,” Sherlock replied, unyielding. “I’ve got a few things to say to _him_ , as well.”

Indigo made a noise of despair. “Sherlock, you can’t just—Look what he did!” He indicated the chair and the wall. “You can’t just chastise him like a bad puppy!”

“He’s just trying to intimidate me,” Sherlock dismissed. “Really, who writes on a wall with _ketchup_? And these chairs are flimsy.” The one Lestrade was sitting in did not feel flimsy to _him_. “Do you have your handcuffs?” Sherlock asked him sharply, and he nodded. “We’ll be fine,” he concluded to Indigo confidently.

“Sherlock, I don’t—“

“Relax,” Sherlock ordered him, as if such a thing could happen on command. “Just relax.”

Unwillingly Indigo tried to comply, leaning sideways against the back of the couch and closing his eyes. There was no way to deny someone as persistent as Sherlock. After a moment he scooted away and wrapped Indigo in a blanket. When it seemed the other man was concentrating fully on relaxing, Sherlock sprang to the fireplace and began fidgeting with his phone, setting it up on the mantel.

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “You’re gonna film Fury?” he guessed.

“Of course.” Of course. Couldn’t let an opportunity like this go by. “He has information,” Sherlock added, for once picking up on Lestrade’s disapproval.

“He has _issues_ ,” Lestrade muttered in response, hoping Indigo was beyond hearing at this point. “Well, how are you going to bring him up?” he asked, more practically.

Sherlock settled down in another chair, giving the quiet lump of Indigo on the couch a hard stare. “I’m going to call for him,” he revealed, as if it was that simple. “Indigo?” he checked first. There was no response, and his voice became frostier. “I want to speak to Fury,” he summoned.

Nothing happened. “Have you tried hypnotizing him?” Lestrade asked casually. “I read that—“

Sherlock was not interested in his thoughts. “I want to speak to Fury,” he repeated, steel in his tone.

Indigo was almost completely invisible under the blanket. For a moment nothing happened; then suddenly the blanket was thrown off and not-Indigo sprang to his feet, his movements almost unnaturally quick.

Sherlock and Lestrade were on their feet in an instant, too. Not-Indigo stood before them tensely, eyes darting from one to the other, every breath labored.

“Fury?” Sherlock asked, and received a pointed growl in response. Sherlock was not scared, though he certainly _should_ be; in fact, looking from one alert body and cold gaze to the other, Lestrade would be hard-pressed to say which of them was more dangerous in this moment. It did not give him comfort to be in between them.

“There are many ways to communicate with me, Fury,” Sherlock told him flatly, “that don’t involve hurting Indigo. Don’t do that again.”

Fury pulled his lips back in a snarl. “Can’t be helped sometimes,” he claimed. His voice had a nasty roughness to it.

“It might be allowable when you’re protecting Indigo,” Sherlock judged imperiously, “but never just to get my attention. Sit down.”

“Like givin’ orders, don’t you,” Fury noted significantly, as if this was something _he_ was very much against.

“ _Yes_ ,” Sherlock agreed boldly. “Sit down.”

To Lestrade’s surprise, Fury sat, perching on the edge of the couch. Sherlock sat down on the other end, facing him, and slowly Lestrade took a chair as well.

“I don’t get on with people who give orders,” Fury warned. He seemed to have some trouble speaking, or maybe it was just holding himself still enough to force the words out.

“That’s people whose orders _hurt_ Indigo,” Sherlock clarified arrogantly, as if the alter didn’t know his own mind on the subject. “ _My_ orders protect him.” Fury gave an animalistic snarl, something one might hear in the woods at night, but didn’t refute this. “I’m filming you,” Sherlock pointed out. “Is that alright?” Another noise, which Sherlock chose to take as consent. “What did you want to tell me?”

Fury’s hands were clenched into fists and his whole body shook slightly with tension. “Ask me,” he rumbled unhelpfully.

“What?”

“What you ask the others.” Speaking seemed painful for him, Lestrade judged, like his throat was sore—maybe from screaming. Lestrade didn’t know where _that_ thought had come from, but it seemed strangely apt.

Sherlock nodded and repeated his questions gamely. “How do you protect Indigo?” he asked, as if it was somehow unclear. “SleepingHim waits to defend him at night, do you—“

“I am not like _him_ ,” Fury spat.

“SleepingHim?”

He gave one sharp nod. “When I am needed I strike.”

Sherlock was not getting the distinction. “So if someone attacks Indigo during the day—“

“I am needed to fight back,” Fury went on. “I am needed to kill.”

Sherlock carefully did not look at Lestrade. “Did you kill Simmerson?” he asked levelly.

“No,” Fury snapped. “We do not hurt the master. To hurt the master is death.” He repeated the exact words Charlie had used. “And,” he added unexpectedly, “I would rip him to pieces. Like the dogs had got him.” He bared his teeth in a sinister parody of a smile and Lestrade was surprised they weren’t red with blood.

Sherlock accepted this easily, a sign he was getting a little too used to the alters, Lestrade felt. “Were you present the night Simmerson died?”

“No.”

Sherlock frowned at him. “Do you have any information for me about his death?”

“No.”

Sherlock dared to show annoyance. “Then why did you want me to ask you about it?”

The alter shrugged. “No one talks to Fury.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Lestrade muttered, finding the situation absurd.

It was the wrong response. Fury sprang to his feet with a snarl, and so did everyone else. “Fury, no!” Sherlock ordered when he leaned in Lestrade’s direction. “Sit down.”

There was a long, tense moment when Lestrade did not dare to move. Then Fury threw himself back down on the couch as suddenly as he’d left it, and the other two relaxed incrementally. “We don’t hurt our friends,” Sherlock told Fury seriously. “Lestrade is our friend.” Fury made an unconvinced noise, and Lestrade thought maybe a placating gesture would be appropriate.

“Sorry, Fury,” he offered simply, which at least got the man’s angry glare off him. Note to self: do not tease Fury.

“Fury, when were you first needed?” Sherlock asked, continuing the interview.

“Long ago.”

Sherlock tried to contain his excitement at finding an older alter. “When Indigo was a child?”

“No.”

“Oh. When he was in the Army?”

“No.”

Sherlock rolled the timeline back again. “Before he went to uni?”

“Yes.”

That left an obvious block of time. “As a teenager?” Sherlock confirmed.

“First was the overseer,” Fury replied, unpredictably. “Then the guardian. Then the one who is guarded. When _he_ was strong enough, then there was Fury.” His words were completely incomprehensible to Lestrade, but no less chilling for it.

He took small comfort from the fact that Sherlock was frowning, too. “The overseer would be UnderHim,” he reasoned, almost to himself. “And the guardian could be SleepingHim. Who’s the one who is guarded? Wouldn’t that be Indigo? Why would he be third?” Lestrade had no idea but didn’t dare speak to say so; Fury merely snarled.

“Okay. What were you first needed to do, Fury?” Sherlock quizzed, and the alter looked at him as if to say, _you must be joking—don’t you get it by now?_ Sherlock did get it. “Who were you first needed to kill?”

Fury bared his teeth. “Not saying.”

Sherlock frowned. “Why not?” he asked, as if he couldn’t imagine why it was a secret.

Fury gave him a long look, which had Lestrade squirming by proxy, but Sherlock didn’t seem bothered by it. “I’ll tell another,” Fury offered instead.

“Okay.”

“I killed the Major.” His voice was just slightly gleeful and both Lestrade and Sherlock made sure to keep their expressions neutral.

“When Indigo was in the Army?” A single nod. “What major? Why?”

“He came at us with a knife,” Fury related, the anger seething from every pore. “Always.”

“Always,” Sherlock repeated significantly. “He attacked Indigo repeatedly?”

“Threatened,” Fury corrected. “And others. He came at us with a knife and I killed him with it.”

“What’d you do with the body?” Lestrade asked curiously. There was no mention of this in Indigo’s records, he’d been checking them closely since he’d gotten this case.

Fury’s eyes turned on him. “There are many bodies in war,” he noted coldly.

“You made it look like he’d been killed in combat,” Sherlock surmised. “Were there any witnesses?” It sounded like clear self-defense to him, at least if Fury’s description could be trusted.

“Others saw,” Fury replied, with some disdain. “They did nothing. They were cowards.” Clearly this was the worst insult he could give someone.

“Thank you,” Sherlock told him steadily, “for protecting Indigo.” He held out his hand.

Fury stared at it for a long moment, then hesitantly his own hand lifted and touched Sherlock’s. Lestrade was half-afraid the alter was going to pull him into a headlock or something. But after a brief contact he let his hand fall away. Sherlock seemed satisfied with this.

“I’ll tell another,” Fury volunteered. Lestrade was not sure he really wanted to hear about more unsolved murders, but Sherlock seemed interested, and that was all that mattered to the alter. “It was a slave.”

“When Indigo was a slave?”

“Yes,” Fury confirmed. Lestrade relaxed slightly, then felt horrible for doing so. Of course death was bad, but if no one had made a fuss about their murdered slave, Lestrade didn’t feel so compelled to follow up. Somehow that seemed wrong. “The world is better without her in it,” Fury pronounced.

“What did she do to Indigo?” Sherlock asked.

“Nothing.” For a moment Lestrade thought he was being overly literal—Indigo’s name hadn’t been Indigo under Sherlock bought him. In this house, for example, he’d been Arrow.

Or Fury was confessing to killing someone just for fun.

Sherlock interpreted it differently, however. “She didn’t harm Indigo, but she harmed someone else,” he guessed with some excitement. Fury did not dispute this. “Who?”

“A child.”

“Defender of the weak, are you?” Lestrade said, keeping his tone curious, rather than sarcastic.

He was ignored, which might have been best. “A child Indigo had grown fond of, who reminded him of himself perhaps,” Sherlock speculated.

Fury was obviously not detail-oriented. “They think she ran away,” he shrugged, suggesting the body had not—and would never—be found.

Lestrade did not get the point of this admission, but Sherlock found one. “You can act to defend people Indigo cares about,” he concluded. He grinned suddenly. “Do you care about _me_ , Fury?”

He said this in an almost flirtatious tone, which appalled Lestrade. “G-d, Sherlock, are you trying to jump all of them?” he accused.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “We’re communicating, if you don’t mind,” he shot back. “Thank you for telling me this, Fury,” he added politely. Then he became stern. “You remember what I said, about not hurting Indigo?”

“I remember,” Fury agreed.

“Next time you can just leave a note, on paper, or send a text or something,” Sherlock informed him. “Do you know how to use a mobile? Everyone needs to learn—“

“I will not.” This sounded more like a statement of fact than defiance. “I act, and I leave.”

“Leaving Indigo to clean up the mess?” Sherlock chided. Though, you’d think disposing of bodies he found himself standing over might have been mentioned by now.

“Someone,” Fury shrugged, which seemed to strike Sherlock as significant.

“Well, we’ll see about that,” he demurred. Lestrade had visions of him putting all the alters through their paces in a training program. No wonder they were all eating out of his hand, he’d gotten over finding them weird right away and moved straight on to the practicalities. “You can go now, Fury.”

Fury gave a sharp nod and leaned his head back on the couch, closing his eyes. After a moment he relaxed completely and became Indigo again, either sleeping or zoned out on the couch. Sherlock jumped up to turn off his camera phone, trying to exult quietly.

“Brilliant, they’re all so brilliant!” he told Lestrade with excitement.

Lestrade couldn’t share it. “This one’s dangerous, Sherlock.” Someone had to point this out. “Barely in control.”

“His name’s Fury, what do you expect?” Sherlock replied flippantly. “Come on, Lestrade, he said he didn’t kill Simmerson.”

Lestrade snorted. “Yeah, we always go by what people tell us,” he responded sarcastically. “I’m going to look up those deaths he mentioned.”

“Sounded perfectly justified to _me_ ,” Sherlock judged. He did not seem troubled by them at all, which was rather troubling in itself.

“And you’re too complacent with them,” Lestrade added. Pointless, but again, it had to be said. “They’re not new pets, they’re unpredictable and sometimes violent.”

Sherlock waved this off. “Do I hurt Indigo?” he asked rhetorically. “No. I’m a saint compared to what they’re used to.”

“Just be careful,” Lestrade warned. “I don’t want to find one of them standing over _you_ next time. Think how Indigo would feel.”

Sherlock huffed as if Lestrade was being tiresome, but his eyes darted over to Indigo to make sure he was still asleep. “Have you been going over the physical evidence?” he demanded, as though Lestrade was just lounging around doing nothing.

“Yes,” he insisted. “But there’s a lot, and some of it is rather vaguely described. I’ll let you know if I find anything.” He took the change of subject as his cue to leave and stood. “I’m glad you sent for me, you shouldn’t have faced Fury on your own.”

“Yes, it’s easier to explain things to Indigo when there’s a witness, sometimes he doesn’t believe me,” Sherlock agreed, completely missing Lestrade’s point. “I’m going to let him sleep for a bit.” He seemed about to replay the video on his phone.

“Alright, I’ll see you later,” Lestrade said, and left to return to his _other_ mystery.

Once Lestrade was gone Sherlock locked the door behind him and archived the video safely. Then he went over to the couch, sitting closely beside Indigo, around him without really touching him.

“UnderHim,” he said quietly. He didn’t really expect a change in response, and he didn’t get one. “UnderHim, I know you can hear me. I know you don’t like to come out. But you need to control Fury better.” His voice was firm. “I will not have him hurt Indigo like this again, upset him.” This had to be understood. Sherlock did not know why UnderHim had allowed it this time—another test, like he suspected Saucy had been? Maybe that was giving UnderHim too much credit; but he would rather believe that, than that UnderHim couldn’t always keep the alters under control. That thought was too frightening.

“When Indigo wakes up, I want him to feel calm and rested.” Sherlock had no idea if this was even possible, but no one had ever accused him of being timid. With that he stood, draped the blanket back over Indigo, and moved away to the other end of the couch to let the slave rest. In the meantime he could review the video.

He’d barely sat down when Indigo started to stir, though. As Sherlock watched he yawned and stretched, endearingly sleepy, and adjusted himself on the couch as though he might drift off again. He even gave Sherlock a charmingly relaxed smile, which the other man hadn’t seen in a long time. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Sherlock returned, prepared to be amazed if UnderHim worked that quickly. “How do you feel?”

“Mmm, good,” Indigo admitted, stretching out more with some reluctance. “What time is it?”

“About two,” Sherlock replied cautiously.

He saw Indigo frown and his eyes dart to the window, and Sherlock admitted that he was, in fact, amazed at UnderHim’s power. Indigo obviously felt too good to believe that he’d only been asleep for a few minutes, and was checking to see if Sherlock meant it was now two _in the morning_. The afternoon sunlight belied that, however.

Sherlock watched unabashedly as Indigo sat up more and extended his legs, pushing the blanket aside to wake up fully. He was used to Sherlock studying him, at least. “I’ve not been asleep for twenty-four hours,” he proposed.

“No,” Sherlock agreed. “About twenty minutes. Well, that’s how long your consciousness was dormant.”

Indigo nodded slowly. “Is Fury actually amazing at yoga or something?” he guessed dryly.

“No,” Sherlock assured him with a smirk. “UnderHim is remarkably good at helping you relax, though.”

Indigo still didn’t get it, which was understandable. “Oh, did you talk to him?”

“Well, I talked _to_ him,” Sherlock repeated, “but he wasn’t actually here. He’s always listening, though. So thank you.”

“For what?”

“I was talking to UnderHim.”

Indigo sighed, slightly exaggerated exasperation instead of the weariness that had pervaded him recently, and tipped over to put his head companionably in Sherlock’s lap. Sherlock smiled and immediately started stroking his short hair.

“You met Fury?” Indigo asked.

“Oh yes.”

“You record him?” he guessed. “You going to let me see it?”

“Um… no,” Sherlock judged. It was not a hard decision.

Indigo glanced around. “Lestrade gone?”

“Yes. He got to meet Fury, though. I’m not sure he realizes the magnitude of what he’s witnessing,” Sherlock commented with a frown.

Indigo smirked faintly. “Oh, I’m sure he does. He just doesn’t find it as entertaining as you do.”

Sherlock drew his fingers over Indigo’s neck, skirting the slave collar. “I think ‘entertaining’ is the wrong word,” he protested. “Fascinating, brilliant, remarkable—“

“Stop,” Indigo huffed. “I’m not Einstein. I’m mentally ill.” He almost managed to say this without hesitating.

“You’re mentally resilient,” Sherlock refuted. “Not to mention creative and resourceful.”

“And handsome as well,” Indigo cracked.

“Well, Fury does have a certain—“ He stopped at Indigo’s sudden look of indignation. “What? Power and confidence are attractive qualities—“

“I really can’t believe you,” Indigo grumbled, settling back down. “Are you attracted to _all_ of my alters?”

“Only the ones I’ve met,” Sherlock qualified, which did not seem like much qualification to Indigo. “I like you best, though. The others are more one-dimensional.”

“Clearly they’re dimensions you like!” Sherlock judged he was not really angry and did not comment further. “Well, tell me about Fury,” Indigo requested after a moment.

Sherlock hesitated; he’d thought he would have more time to figure out what he wanted to tell Indigo. But now those deep blue eyes were staring up at him, increasingly troubled the longer he stalled. “He’s very aggressive,” he began, accurate if unsurprising.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Indigo asked quietly.

“No, not at all,” Sherlock rushed to assure him. “Or Lestrade. He obeyed me perfectly well. He knows I’m the master and he wouldn’t hurt me.”

Indigo frowned. “What?”

“Oh, maybe I didn’t tell you that,” Sherlock realized. “It’s something UnderHim always teaches them, that they mustn’t hurt the master as that would almost certainly lead to your death. So whatever happens they have to follow that rule—that’s why Saucy exists, for example.”

“And Charlie,” Indigo remembered darkly.

Sherlock stroked his cheek. “Yes.”

Another thought occurred to Indigo. “So none of them could have been involved in Simmerson’s death, then?”

“Yes, exactly,” Sherlock agreed with more enthusiasm. “Even Fury.”

Indigo gave this some thought. “So what does Fury… _do_ , then?” he pressed.

“Well, he—do you remember shooting that cabbie?” Sherlock asked instead, unexpectedly.

This caused Indigo to sit up, disappointingly, but he stayed close to Sherlock. “Yes, of course,” he answered, without regret.

“I mean _really_ ,” Sherlock emphasized. The alters had _said_ they weren’t needed since Sherlock had bought Indigo, but he wasn’t convinced they were completely reliable. “You didn’t just find yourself standing there with a gun and draw the obvious conclusion?”

For some reason this made Indigo smile faintly, which Sherlock thought was unfair because _he_ was always being chided for smiling at murders. “No, I remember the whole thing very clearly,” Indigo assured him. “Getting Mrs. Hudson’s gun, having the cab follow _your_ cab, running around the college looking for you…”

“You were in the wrong building,” Sherlock criticized, and Indigo rolled his eyes.

“So sorry, thought I managed to save your life anyway,” he replied mildly.

“I wasn’t really in danger,” Sherlock insisted, as he always did.

“You were going to swallow that pill.” Indigo always insisted on that, as well.

“No, I wasn’t.”

Indigo nodded, which somehow conveyed disagreement. “Why are we talking about this again?”

“Oh, because Fury kills people, and I thought perhaps—“ He saw Indigo’s shocked expression and stopped himself. “Mmm, I was planning to say that differently,” he admitted.

“Fury kills people,” Indigo repeated faintly. “For fun?”

“No, no,” Sherlock rushed to correct, taking his hand. “To protect you. Or someone you care about.” Indigo was not completely comforted by this. “When you killed the cabbie I asked if you were alright, because you’d just killed a man,” Sherlock reminded him, “and you replied, rather nonchalantly, that he wasn’t a very _nice_ man.” He gave Indigo a hard look. “Do you remember that?”

“Yes, Sherlock, I do,” Indigo repeated, with a smidgen of impatience.

“Alright, then. Fury only kills people like that,” Sherlock concluded. “Those sorts of situations.” He felt confident extrapolating from the incidents he’d been told.

“Oh. Well…” He could see Indigo softening on the matter. “But not masters? Well, give me an example, I know you pried one out of him.”

“He was quite happy to tell me how he’d protected you,” Sherlock insisted, even if ‘happy’ wasn’t exactly an accurate word for Fury. “Do you recall anything about a major in the Army who used to threaten people with a knife?”

Indigo suddenly became very still. “Yes,” he answered warily.

Sherlock slipped a reassuring arm around his shoulders. “Well, Fury killed him. Totally self-defense, with his own knife—“

“Oh my G-d,” Indigo breathed, staring off into the distance. “ _That’s_ what happened to him? I thought he was—killed in combat, that’s what everyone said—“

“You don’t remember dealing with the body, to make it _look_ like a combat death?” Sherlock pressed, and Indigo shook his head. “Interesting. _Someone_ did, and I don’t think it was Fury. He said he usually leaves as soon as the deed’s done. Charlie didn’t exist yet, maybe UnderHim himself—“

“Sherlock, this is scary,” Indigo interrupted.

Sherlock tightened his arm around him, not wanting Indigo to be scared. “How so?”

Indigo was not even fazed by his lack of comprehension at this point. “Sherlock, I killed someone, and I don’t remember it,” he tried to explain. “It’s not like—hey, I saw Will from uni, he’s a solicitor now, oh I’d wondered what happened to him.”

Sherlock frowned at him. “Do people actually talk about inane things like that?” he wanted to know.

“Yes. Slightly less inane when the response is, oh, actually, you killed him and disposed of his body,” Indigo went on darkly. “Who’d have thought? Good old Will.”

“I’m not really sure I understand your analogy,” Sherlock admitted delicately.

Indigo scooted closer to lean his head on Sherlock’s shoulder. “That’s okay,” he said, unsurprised. “I didn’t get into trouble for it?” He’d turned this into a question by the end, because evidently not remembering major parts of one’s life was the new normal.

“No,” Sherlock agreed. “Fury said there were witnesses, who did nothing to help, but apparently didn’t get in the way either.”

Sherlock was very interested in the things that surprised Indigo, or in this case, didn’t. “There were others that… the major threatened,” he replied vaguely. Sherlock knew better than to ask for names or other details. “I suppose they were relieved someone had finally done something.” He thought this over for a long moment, then returned to the present and leaned back so he could see Sherlock better. “Did he say any others?”

Sherlock nodded. “At some point since you’ve been a slave, do you remember a child that you were fond of?”

Indigo blinked at him. “I’m generally fond of children,” he hedged.

Sherlock blinked back. “I didn’t know that!”

Indigo rolled his eyes. “Yes, well, you usually punt children away long before they get close enough for me to do anything,” he pointed out.

“They’re sticky, Indigo,” Sherlock reminded him, which he felt should be completely obvious. “Sticky and loud and irrational. Like pets.”

Indigo smiled at him affectionately and let his hand creep to the back of Sherlock’s neck, fingers playing with the dark curls there. “Time for a haircut,” he noted idly.

Sherlock heaved the expected monumental sigh. “G-d!” He hated getting his hair cut. “You can do it,” he decided, which Indigo never thought was as good an idea. “Maybe one of your alters has experience cutting hair!” he suggested with more enthusiasm.

“It’s _you_ that finds it traumatic enough to black out during, not me,” Indigo countered dryly, which Sherlock felt was a gross exaggeration. “Alright, sorry, a child I was fond of,” he went on, getting them back on track. He kept his hand on Sherlock’s neck, though. “Can you be more specific?”

“Not really,” Sherlock admitted. “There was a fellow slave, a woman, who treated the child badly somehow, and Fury killed her.”

“The woman?” Indigo clarified.

“Yes. The body was never found,” Sherlock added, watching Indigo closely. “They thought she ran away.”

“Oh, I think I know who you’re talking about,” Indigo said, far too easily.

“Fury killed her,” Sherlock reiterated, looking for a stronger reaction. “To protect the child.”

“I’m okay with that,” Indigo shrugged. He saw Sherlock’s narrow look. “What? Do you _not_ want me to be okay with that?”

“You weren’t okay with the major,” Sherlock pointed out. “What’s the difference?”

“The difference is,” Indigo began slowly, as if he was just now articulating it himself, “that one was an adult in a position of power, who threatened other adults—adults with combat training, by the way—who refused to tell anyone in authority what was happening, or support one of them who wanted to.” Sherlock got the impression Indigo was the latter person. “And the other was an adult in a position of power, who abused a child, who literally had no one they could turn to for help.”

“Except you,” Sherlock noted.

“Yes,” Indigo agreed, just beginning to realize that. “Apparently I was able to help more than I thought.” This last was said in a rather dry tone.

Sherlock waited a moment, but Indigo seemed disinclined to elaborate. “You have a very complex sense of morality,” he judged, in a dubious tone. He liked the way this made Indigo smile, though so far he had not figured out the pattern of remarks that would reliably generate this smile.

“Any others?”

“No,” Sherlock conveyed with disappointment. “I’m sure there’ve _been_ others, he just hasn’t told me yet.”

“So you’re _hoping_ to learn of more incidents where I felt compelled to kill someone and hide the body?” Indigo asked with dark amusement.

“I don’t think Fury _exclusively_ kills,” Sherlock countered, missing the sarcasm per usual. “I think he fights _back_. And usually wins.” He slid his hand under Indigo’s injured one. “I told him off for this, I don’t think he’ll do it again,” he announced.

Indigo sighed and leaned his head on his shoulder again. “Sherlock!”

“Well, it made me angry.”

“That’s sweet,” Indigo conceded. “Not so sweet if he gives you a bloody nose next time.”

Sherlock dismissed this. “Fury likes me,” he declared confidently. “He understands we’re on the same side.”

“So is he, I don’t know, a tough wisecracker or something?” Indigo asked curiously. “Boasting about eating his own toes to survive or something?”

Sherlock looked at him askance, more so once he discerned that Indigo was just being cheeky. “If _that’s_ your idea of ‘tough’ I’m going to make you stop watching those awful action films on the telly,” he decided with some disgust, and Indigo made a light noise of protest. Sherlock was heartened he was taking this so well, though. “Fury’s not the most nimble conversational partner,” he conceded. “A man of action rather than words. Sounds like he’d really rather just growl most of the time. Unrepentant about the job he does—What?” Indigo was looking at him and shaking his head.

“I cannot believe you!” he claimed, even though they’d covered this earlier. “You find that sort of thing attractive? You do, don’t deny it.”

Sherlock judged him to be amused rather than angry by now, so his defensiveness was likewise tongue in cheek. “Well, it’s _novel_ ,” he tried to say. “And it’s like _you_ acting that way, temporarily. Sort of—role-playing.”

“You know, I don’t think you should find my mental illness so titillating,” Indigo accused lightly. “It’s not meant to be a kinky new experience for you. Sex kitten, he-man, S&M—what’s SleepingHim, then? D’you think he even _likes_ sex?”

“Hard to get,” Sherlock judged. “Seduction and pursuit required.” He was pleased at the idea of this challenge.

Indigo groaned but curled up in Sherlock’s arms. “There is something wrong with _both_ of us,” he decided.

“Well, we’re compatible, then.”

Indigo snorted. “Yes.”

They were quiet for a few moments, the silence companionable rather than melancholy or fearful. Sherlock let his lips brush Indigo’s temple, grateful again that UnderHim could exert some control over his physical and mental state, making him feel well-rested with the equanimity and perspective that tended to bring. Why didn’t he make Indigo feel like that all the time, then? Resource allocation, possibly—it was too taxing for frequent use. And, the alters seemed concerned with Indigo’s basic survival, which was different from his _happiness_. When you had a life that produced alters for survival, asking them to also cheer you up might be a little much to hope for.

Well, not anymore, Sherlock decided firmly. He didn’t know what was preferable with the alters—if Indigo could be ‘healed’ would they go dormant or even disappear entirely, perhaps releasing the memories they’d held back into Indigo’s brain? Sherlock felt sure he could handle them now, if they came slowly enough—Indigo was safe now, and Sherlock would help him.

Or was it better to make the alters happy, give them new, positive purpose, like with SleepingHim, help them to help Indigo in other ways? He would have to see what happened once they left this house—there was every possibility that when they returned to Baker Street, the alters would just fade away again, unneeded.

So Sherlock had better investigate them _now_ , while he had the chance—that was _his_ conclusion, anyway.

“Fury said that first was the overseer,” Sherlock remembered—rather suddenly, from Indigo’s point of view, as he had been enjoying the quiet. “Then the guardian, then the one who is guarded. Then, fourth, Fury.”

“Oh, you didn’t mention he liked fantasy-adventure riddles,” Indigo remarked dryly. He sounded sleepy, like he might’ve dozed off while Sherlock was thinking.

“Doesn’t make sense, though,” Sherlock puzzled.

“Oh, the best ones don’t.”

“Overseer, UnderHim. First alter, directs the others,” Sherlock parsed. Indigo got more comfortable against him, as if settling in for the long haul. “The guardian, SleepingHim, protects you at night. Why only at night? Charlie called him a vampire.”

“Please let that be metaphorical,” Indigo hoped. “I don’t need anything else weird happening.”

“Third, ‘the one who is guarded,’” Sherlock repeated. “That’s you, why would you be third? If you’re to be listed at all you should be first, as the original. Why would you have a guardian, _then_ someone to guard? It should be the other way ‘round.”

“Did you ever think,” Indigo mused slowly, “that maybe you’re trying to put rational rules on an irrational process?” He sounded vaguely indulgent.

Sherlock was not swayed, however. “No, it’s very rational,” he asserted. “UnderHim sends out the player best suited to the situation. If the situation is serious and the right player doesn’t exist, he makes a new one. Saucy said they get easier to make as time goes on,” he added thoughtfully.

“Well that’s lovely,” Indigo replied sarcastically. “I’ll start popping out a new alter every time I get a hangnail.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but now knew better than to accuse Indigo of not taking this seriously. Humor was surely healthier. “So Fury listed himself fourth, if we can take that list literally,” he continued. “He’s fairly old, appeared when you were a teenager actually, so he must’ve been the last alter until—“ He felt Indigo tense against him suddenly. “Indigo?”

The slave pulled away, agitated again, and Sherlock didn’t know whether he should regret disturbing his relaxed state or rejoice that he might learn more crucial information. “A teenager?” Indigo repeated, pacing now. “Fury first appeared when I was a teenager?”

“Yes,” Sherlock confirmed, perched on the edge of the couch. “What’s the problem?”

“Fury kills people, and he appeared when I was a teenager, so who—“ He froze, staring unseeing into the distance, and it wasn’t hard to realize the rest of the sentence: _who did he kill?_

Or maybe Indigo knew the answer to that already.

He turned away quickly and Sherlock jumped up, approaching his back warily. “Indigo?”

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” he claimed, but when Sherlock touched his shoulders they were rock-hard with tension.

“Who died when you were a teenager?” Sherlock pressed quietly.

“Leave it,” Indigo replied, somewhere between a request and a command.

Sherlock slid his hands down Indigo’s arms, trying to massage them a bit. “Whoever it was, they were trying to hurt you, Indigo,” he pointed out.

“No, it’s not—“ He sounded terribly confused. “It must’ve been—No, couldn’t be—“

“What are you thinking of?” Sherlock dared to ask.

“I can’t remember,” Indigo answered. He seemed sincere and frustrated, rather than evasive. “It must be something else.”

“Could you tell me a little more about—“

“No,” Indigo refused quietly. “Don’t ask. Please. Sorry,” he added belatedly.

Sherlock sighed and rested his head on Indigo’s shoulder, his arms all the way around him tightly. “Okay,” he agreed. “I won’t.” Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to look it up later, though. “Everything the alters do is to protect you, help you,” he reminded Indigo carefully. He could understand, he supposed, the surprise, the shock, of realizing ‘you’ had done things you didn’t remember, violent things, but—Sherlock could not bring himself to wish those people, whoever they were, had _not_ died at Fury’s hands.

“Even Saucy trying to jump you?” Indigo cracked unexpectedly. His muscles were still tight but his voice held a trace of dark humor.

Sherlock swayed against him slightly. “Maybe UnderHim thought it would be good for you,” he replied, very seriously. “Sexual release induces mood-altering endorphins, which you could certainly benefit from—“

Indigo barked out a laugh, dry and harsh, but it led to a slight decrease in tension, and he turned in Sherlock’s arms to rest his head on his shoulder. “Sorry,” he sighed.

“What for?” Sherlock asked curiously. “I find your alters fascinating, there’s no need to apologize for them.”

“Right. I don’t know,” Indigo admitted. “My adjustment issues, maybe?”

“They’re _probably_ normal,” Sherlock judged, which made Indigo snort against him.

“What should we do now?” Indigo asked after a moment.

“Probably scrub the ketchup off the wall and hide the broken chair in the back of the closet,” Sherlock suggested matter-of-factly. “Not sure what to do about the hole in the wall—maybe put one of these useless decorative things in front of it. If need be I’ll claim I was doing an experiment, that usually works.”

“Okay, I actually meant that in a larger philosophical sense,” Indigo admitted dryly, “but practicality makes a refreshing change.” He detached himself from Sherlock and went to the bathroom to fetch a wet cloth and began wiping Fury’s message away.

“Well, what else _is_ there to do, in a larger philosophical sense?” Sherlock asked, picking up a couple of broken chair pieces. “We make sure the alters understand you’re safe now.” He started swinging two of the sticks around, testing their heft. “And they either go away, or integrate into your life.”

“I can do that,” Indigo suggested, nodding at the chair pieces. He tried not to smirk at Sherlock, whose very serious investigation of the physical properties of the wooden chair legs reminded him of a little boy playing with a stick. “You’re—you’re going to poke your eye out,” he warned. Wasn’t that what people always said?

“I am not,” Sherlock scoffed, right before the piece he was holding unexpectedly broke and fell to the floor. “This furniture is rubbish,” he opined, dropping the rest.

“I’ll clean it up,” Indigo assured him. “You want to watch the video again, I know.”

“Well, alright,” Sherlock agreed. He almost went back to the couch, then changed his mind and headed for the bed, with his back against the wall. Indigo rolled his eyes, realizing Sherlock didn’t want to chance him seeing any of it. “Then I think I ought to talk to Robert Simmerson again, he was clearly lying about what happened in the garden,” he mused, putting his earbuds in.

Indigo turned back to the wall to keep scrubbing. “Lovely,” he muttered under his breath.

**

It was not unusual for Sherlock’s comments and behavior to enrage people. Occasionally they even tried to take a swing at him. Usually he saw this coming a mile away and simply moved aside, letting the attacker look like a fool as they stumbled (which didn’t ever win him points with them, oddly enough). Today, he also saw it coming and prepared to move aside, as Robert Simmerson was not exactly a subtle creature; only instead of Robert stumbling and cursing, there was a snarl and a flash of movement from Sherlock’s side, and to his horror he saw Fury leaping forward.

Fortunately there were other sensible people around, like Lestrade, who could also read Robert Simmerson’s body language and intervene, so Sherlock was able to throw himself bodily at Fury and shove him back. “Calm down, Fury!” he hissed in his ear. “Don’t get Indigo in trouble for this!”

Fury growled in response, intensely dissatisfied with this situation, and Sherlock pushed him further away into the bushes. “Relax,” Sherlock ordered him. “This sort of thing happens to me all the time. You can’t go ballistic on people for it. Okay, maybe if he _actually_ hit me,” he allowed, checking back over his shoulder to make sure Lestrade was still talking Robert down. “But even then, just hold him off, don’t kill or maim anyone. There’s no need to be excessive.”

“Excessive?” Fury finally snarled, as if he didn’t know the meaning of the word.

Sherlock sighed. “We’ll talk about it later, alright?” he promised. “I appreciate the thought. Could I have Indigo back now, please?”

With a huff Fury disappeared, hopefully to get some advice from UnderHim about appropriate force, and Indigo returned. His eyes darted around the scene, taking it in. “Robert Simmerson took a swing at you and one of the alters jumped in?” he guessed.

“Fury,” Sherlock confirmed, stepping back so Indigo could leave the bush. “He didn’t actually do anything, though. Just give Robert the evil eye as we go back.”

“Gladly,” Indigo agreed, brushing himself off. “Don’t you usually get out of the way, though?”

“Well, Fury must not have realized that,” Sherlock decided.

“I don’t want you to think _I_ wouldn’t have leapt to your defense,” Indigo insisted.

“No, I know.”

“You just usually get out of the way.”

Sherlock gave him a look. “It’s alright, I’m not upset,” he promised. “Can we go back now?”

Indigo sighed. “Right.”

**

Sherlock had a theory. A few, actually, and the race among them in his mind was as fraught as anything in the sporting world. Of course the changing positions were based on logic and evidence, nothing so frivolous as physical stamina; but if it had been possible for anyone else to experience it, he felt they would find it as exciting as he did. His comment to Indigo that at least _he_ had other people in his head to appreciate things like this had not gone over well.

They were in the parlor. Or the study or the lounge or whatever. Some room with no purpose except sitting. Sitting room, perhaps. Sherlock was on the couch, Indigo kneeling at his feet. He always knelt when they were with others, especially the family members. He knelt quietly by Sherlock and tried to zone out as much as possible, blocking everyone and everything in the house from his mind.

Lestrade stood at the front of the room, sucking up all the attention per usual. There was no point in berating these people for lying to the police; they lied about what they wanted for breakfast, about the color of the sky. They lied, they concealed, they manipulated, they encouraged the local police—who knew which side their bread was buttered on—to be sloppy with evidence and remove ‘irrelevant’ details from their reports. More serious was lying about what slaves had died of; Sherlock glanced over at Indigo to make sure he was still out, so he wouldn’t have to hear it.

Sherlock gave him a slightly longer look than he’d meant, sensing something _off_ about him—not enough to be a new alter, but not upset either, and his posture was relaxed and his gaze unfocused, so that was alright. Then Dr. Bernard started yelling about false accusations and Sherlock left Indigo to his fantasies. Couldn’t prove anything without bodies or at least witnesses, and they weren’t going to get either. This was all tangential, anyway.

Then Lestrade started going over the night of Simmerson’s death. Indigo—known then as Arrow—had been with him in his bedroom. There’d been a fight with Sir James earlier. A slave in the hall had seen Indigo leave, and no one go back in. But in the morning Simmerson was dead on the floor.

“But now Ellipse admits he fell asleep sometime after Indigo left,” Lestrade announced. “So someone could have snuck by him into Simmerson’s room.”

“Like James!” accused Lady Cecily triumphantly.

“Or _you_ ,” Sir James shot back.

“Anyone, really,” pointed out the Reverend Teagan.

“Going over the physical evidence that was collected from the scene at the time, we found a number of items that had been dismissed as unimportant,” Lestrade went on. “For example, _this_.” He held up an evidence bag containing a small ring.

“Obviously not one of _mine_ ,” Sir James cracked, sending a poisonous look at Lady Cecily.

“It’s a ring, so what?” she huffed.

“It was found under the bed, on the side where Simmerson was lying,” Lestrade revealed. “The rest of the area under the bed was clean.”

“Father was a fanatic about keeping the floor under the beds cleaned,” Robert sighed, as though this had been a heavy burden in his life. The others chimed in with grudging agreement.

“The maid said she cleaned under there that afternoon, so the ring must’ve been dropped after that,” Lestrade noted.

“By a woman!” Sir James remarked, tediously. “By the woman who killed him!”

“We don’t even have a murder weapon,” Teagan reminded them. “No one may have killed him, he may just have fallen out of bed and hit his head on the floor.”

“Well, anyone could’ve given him a shove, _making_ him fall and hit his head,” Robert suggested, with a bit too much relish. “Or it could even have been more of an accident, I suppose…”

“But who does the ring belong to?” Lady Cecily asked defensively. “It can’t be one of mine, I’m sure, even from here it looks too small.” She turned her nose up at it further when Lestrade walked the bag over to her.

As much as everyone in the room wanted to throw the blame on someone else, they couldn’t come up with any plausible suggestions once they actually saw the tiny, rather cheap ornament. No one in this family would’ve owned such a thing.

Sherlock found the whole thing dull, and his eyes strayed repeatedly to his phone, which he wasn’t supposed to play with, as that would be… rude, or something? He was rapidly reaching the point of not caring. How like gaudy, ignorant aristocrats, to think everything hinged on one tiny piece of evidence, like they were all characters in a simplistic mystery novel. Oh, sometimes a tiny piece of evidence mattered, of course, but it was much more likely to be a mustard stain or a bit of sand than a piece of jewelry, whose owner they would probably never identify anyway. After Lestrade’s setup anyone would be a fool to claim it.

The bag was making its way around the room, Lestrade watching carefully for signs of treachery. Teagan passed it to Sherlock, who glanced at it only for anything it might, in itself, tell him—he of course would have no idea who it belonged to. Then he belatedly leaned down to awaken Indigo.

To his surprise, Indigo was already alert, and staring at the ring in the bag. He didn’t touch it but rather frowned and said, “I think it belonged to Star.”

Every eye in the place swiveled to him. “Star, the slave?” Lestrade asked. “Wasn’t she your friend?”

Indigo did not answer this. “Star was one of the master’s favorites,” he said instead. Sherlock watched him closely, a slight frown on his face. Then he reminded himself that Indigo was probably terrified to speak up in this room full of people he hated, and he tried to be more supportive, in a psychic sense as there wasn’t much else he could do.

“That’s right, I remember her wearing it,” Sir James said unexpectedly. Then, an even _more_ surprising admission: “Father could be a little rough with the slaves sometimes, even his favorites.”

“He had her tortured for his amusement,” Indigo added coldly, staring straight ahead at nothing.

“Weren’t _you_ the one actually doing the torturing?” Lady Cecily asked snidely, and Sherlock let his fingertips brush the back of Indigo’s neck.

“At _your father’s_ insistence,” he shot back, when Indigo remained silent.

“The man had a torture chamber in his bedroom, it’s pretty obvious who was running the show,” Lestrade added dryly. He took the ring back. “I’ll ask the other slaves if they remember Star having this ring.”

“You should find her and question her,” Robert insisted, as though this hadn’t occurred to anyone else. “I think she was sold soon after Father’s death—maybe somewhere in Cornwall? They had a foreign accent, anyway.”

“Yeah, I’ve looked her up already,” Lestrade noted, “and she died two years ago.”

This put a slight damper on the room, not because anyone was sad Star had died, but because they couldn’t figure out where that left _them_ in terms of throwing the blame on one another.

Lady Cecily was the first to recover. “Well, the ring’s irrelevant,” she declared. “James is the one who had an argument with Father that evening!”

“Oh, he was just as angry at _you_ , Cecily!” Sir James insisted. “You and that underwear model who was spending all your allowance—“

Sherlock sighed and slumped back on the couch, feeling his brain oozing away. Indigo had zoned out again; he wished _he_ had that power, and not for the first time, especially _here_.

**

So, Star was the murderer.

Of course it wasn’t exactly definitive; she was no longer alive to interrogate, and there were no witnesses. But other slaves recognized the ring as hers, and with some coaxing admitted to her rage at the master and her often intemperate words about what she would like to do to him. Her whereabouts the night of the murder were the usual ‘alone in her room asleep,’ so it all added up to a suggestive situation that couldn’t be disproved. It was more evidence than they had against anyone else, though, enough for the judge to rule that the heirs were to stop accusing each other of murder and get on with the business of divvying up the estate.

The alters had been silent since the revelation about Star broke, even though Sherlock and Indigo stayed at the house for a couple more days. Sherlock stayed up all night waiting for SleepingHim, to no avail. He tried summoning Saucy, Charlie, even Fury—nothing. Indigo was vastly relieved—to not hear from the alters, to have suspicion removed from him, to be leaving that house and going home. And if Sherlock was a little disappointed, well, Indigo had no doubt something else would soon catch his attention.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2: Sherlock travels to Indigo’s hometown to reveal the roots of his trauma. And, domestic fun with the alters!

Baker Street was just as they left it, better (according to some, anyway) as Mrs. Hudson had taken advantage of their absence to give the place a thorough cleaning, which Sherlock had completely freaked out about. Mrs. Hudson was also a prudent woman, however, and had chosen to take the day of their return off and go out to parts unknown, so Sherlock couldn’t easily berate her.

His mind churned with thoughts about the case still and in the middle of the night he found himself sitting in his chair in the living room, unable to sleep. Sherlock was frustrated. The case wasn’t even that difficult in itself, but it might be unsolvable due to time and the chief suspect’s death, and Sherlock just really hated _not knowing_. No one could _plan_ the perfect crime, Sherlock believed, one that was _designed_ to be unsolvable. But unfortunately a lucky fool could create it by chance, especially if he or she happened to die before it could be investigated properly. The _nerve_ of some people.

Sherlock heard movement in the bedroom behind him. “Go back to sleep,” he called to Indigo. “I’m thinking.” The movement did not stop, however, and he heard the door open and Indigo’s bare feet on the floor. “I said I’m thinking,” Sherlock repeated petulantly. “Go away.”

“I will secure the perimeter first,” was the reply, and Sherlock spun around to see SleepingHim, who calmly walked past to check the windows.

“Sleepy!” Sherlock exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” He was not sure what this meant for Indigo; but to be honest part of him was relieved to see the alter again. There were still mysteries left to solve in the world, starting right in his own flat.

“I’m securing the perimeter,” Sleepy responded flatly. “I will check upstairs.”

Sherlock followed him. “Where’ve you been for the last couple days?” he asked, unable to conceal his eagerness. “I thought maybe you weren’t coming back.”

“UnderHim said it was best to be quiet,” Sleepy reported, checking the windows in Indigo’s room. “Sometimes it’s best for _him_ if we are quiet.”

Sherlock trailed behind him as he went downstairs again. “Why?” he wanted to know. “I understand if you aren’t needed, but why should you be quiet otherwise? How does that help?”

“Sometimes there are doctors,” Sleepy replied. “We must be quiet around doctors.”

“Oh, like psychiatrists?” Sherlock realized. “Yes, that’s probably wise. But there weren’t any—Sleepy, hang on. SleepingHim!” The alter stopped with his hand on the flat’s door. “Are you going downstairs?” Sherlock checked.

SleepingHim gave him a slightly patronizing look. “I must secure the perimeter,” he repeated. Then he gazed around the flat speculatively. “This place is new to me. It may have many security risks.”

“No, actually, it’s very secure, my brother Mycroft saw to that—No, wait a minute,” Sherlock said again as he started to open the door. “You should put some clothes on first.” Indigo had been game for some ‘welcome home’ sex earlier and had had no cause to get dressed since.

Sleepy looked down at himself as though noticing his nudity for the first time, though he didn’t seem bothered by it. “Are there scorpions?” he asked pragmatically.

“No, but there’s Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock replied. He urged the reluctant alter back to the bedroom, searching for Indigo’s discarded clothing. “You know who Mrs. Hudson is, right?”

Sleepy paused to check. “Yes.”

“She’s a friend,” Sherlock went on anyway, tossing the pajama pants and t-shirt at him. Obtusely he started with the shirt, not that Sherlock cared. “But not the sort of friend we’re naked in front of.” He always wore at _least_ a sheet. “I’ll tell her about you in the morning, but I haven’t had a chance yet, because she skipped out after destroying my experiments and I don’t even really know if she’s back yet but—“ He paused as Sleepy stood there blinking at him.

“I must secure the perimeter now,” he decided, and walked off.

Sherlock followed him with a sigh. “Well, _why_ did UnderHim want you to be quiet?” he persisted. “There weren’t any doctors around.”

“Don’t know,” Sleepy replied without concern, padding down the stairs.

“Well, why are you back, then?” Sherlock wanted to know. “You weren’t ever needed here before. Don’t touch that!” Sleepy froze with his hand on the front door. “Let me show you how the alarm system works.” The alter watched with rapt attention as Sherlock explained; he was pleased he hadn’t gotten around to deleting the information yet and looked forward to bragging about this to Indigo in the morning.

Suddenly Mrs. Hudson’s door opened and the housekeeper stuck her head out, squinting in the light from the hallway. “Sherlock, dear, what are you two up to this time of night?”

Sherlock turned his back on her sourly. “Tell Mrs. Hudson I’m not speaking to her because she destroyed my experiments!” he ordered.

“She heard you,” Sleepy pointed out in confusion.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson huffed. “You went off and left them, and they were growing mold!”

“I was studying the mold!” he insisted, whirling back around. She merely rolled her eyes, unimpressed with this reasoning.

“I must secure the perimeter,” Sleepy told her, approaching her door, and Mrs. Hudson let him inside her flat with a worried look.

“Oh, dear, is he having an episode?” Mrs. Hudson asked Sherlock.

“Er, yes, actually,” he admitted, trying to keep Sleepy in sight. “Indigo has dissociative identity disorder. There’s at least five alternate personalities in addition to his usual one. This is SleepingHim, he’s a sort of guardian.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Hudson nodded as though this made perfect sense.

Sleepy reappeared. “The perimeter is secure,” he announced to Sherlock.

“Good lad. You recognize Mrs. Hudson, my housekeeper?” he checked.

SleepingHim gave her a steady appraisal. “Yes. We agree, you’re safe.”

“Unless there’s mold involved, apparently,” Sherlock couldn’t help but add pointedly. This was irrelevant to Sleepy, though. “Alright, are we done here? Let’s go back upstairs.”

“Goodnight, boys!” Mrs. Hudson called after them. Sherlock did not respond, which was normal; but the slave merely gave her an inscrutable look, which was not. Shaking her head at what they got up to, Mrs. Hudson went back to bed.

Once they were back in their own living room with the door secure, Sherlock herded Sleepy to the couch and sat down at the other end. “Now explain to me why you’re here,” he said sternly.

“I secured the—“

“Sleepy.”

Sleepy paused to check with a higher power. “UnderHim says it’s okay for us to be here,” he finally replied, a slight note of defensiveness in his voice.

“Yes, it’s alright,” Sherlock rushed to assure him. The alter perched alertly on the edge of the couch, as if he was going to spring up any second, and Sherlock did not want that to happen until he got some answers. “It’s alright for you to be here, I’m glad to see you. Will you come here?”

“Don’t touch,” Sleepy said immediately.

“No, I know,” Sherlock agreed, trying to be patient. “But you could come a little closer, lean back, have a blanket.” Indigo was always cold, it seemed, hence the otherwise pointless blankets draped over every surface in the flat.

Sleepy considered this and tried to accommodate him, in his way. Sherlock could practically _see_ the gears turning in his brain and imagined them to be rather rusty. The alter scooted an inch closer, leaned back against the cushions, and submitted to Sherlock draping a blanket over him.

“There, that’s alright, isn’t it?” Sherlock coaxed. “Don’t want anyone getting cold.” Sleepy blinked at him and suddenly Sherlock wondered which of them, exactly, was being patient and tolerant of the other. “Now, explain to me. Is there a threat to Indigo here? There wasn’t before.”

“The perimeter wasn’t secure.”

“You know what, it _was_ , actually,” Sherlock countered.

Sleepy tried a new tactic. “Don’t you want us here?”

“I want you to protect Indigo,” Sherlock said immediately. “You’re not protecting him from me, are you?” he checked.

“No, we agree, you’re safe,” Sleepy promised quickly, as Sherlock expected.

“Well then, help me out here, Sleepy,” he prodded, trying to keep the inquiry open-ended. “What are your thoughts on this subject?”

He had to wait a while as the thoughts were gathered. It was not the usual question Sleepy considered. “UnderHim says, we were asleep before, and now we are awake,” he finally conveyed.

Sherlock frowned. “Before? But that was only since I bought Indigo,” he pointed out. “Before that you were awake. It really hasn’t been that long.”

“We were asleep before, and now we are awake,” Sleepy repeated stubbornly. “And we don’t want to go back to sleep.”

This seemed significant to Sherlock. “You don’t _want_ to?” It sounded a little more autonomous than he had expected. “Of course, if you’re needed by Indigo, you must wake up—“

“Other times,” Sleepy asserted. “Like now. I am not needed now. I want to be here.”

Sherlock thought about this and smiled slowly. “Why do you _want_ to be here, Sleepy?”

SleepingHim was not coy, however. “To see you.”

Sherlock’s smile turned into a broad grin. “To see _me_?” The arm he’d rested along the back of the couch crept slightly closer to the slave. “Well, I’m quite flattered. You’re not going to tire Indigo out by being here, are you?” he asked him sternly.

“No, he is resting,” Sleepy promised. “We are safe here,” he added suddenly.

“Yes, all of you are safe here,” Sherlock agreed. “Indigo is safe, and I’m not afraid of you or the others.”

“Will you make us go away?” Sleepy asked, his deep blue eyes wide and questioning.

“I’m not sure how I would even do that,” Sherlock admitted, which was not very reassuring to Sleepy. “No, I won’t make you go away,” he hastened to add, “as long as Indigo is okay with that. He has to be the first priority.”

“Yes, we agree,” Sleepy nodded. “We are all for him first.”

Sherlock scooted just a little bit closer. “So, what shall we do now?” he asked leadingly.

“You can sleep, and I will watch,” Sleepy suggested.

“You don’t really have to be on guard here, I showed you the security system,” Sherlock reminded him. “Maybe you would like to… talk?” He shifted a little closer and had to bend his arm so it hung down from the back of the couch.

“Don’t touch.”

“I’m not touching.” Sherlock waited to see if he’d upset the alter, but he just sat there, blinking back at him. “Why don’t you like to be touched?”

“I must remain alert and mobile,” Sleepy informed him. “And…” he added slowly, “touching is bad.”

Sherlock felt a chill go down his spine. “It can be,” he allowed. “It can also be good, when both parties consent. Who touched you, that you didn’t like?”

Sleepy cocked his head to the side, listening, and Sherlock had a feeling someone was going to quash his inquiry. “UnderHim says I should not talk about that,” he reported, “because you will tell _him_.”

Sherlock thought about promising not to, but he wasn’t sure the alters would believe him, nor was he sure he would believe _himself_. “Alright,” he agreed reluctantly. “But if I figure it out on my own, will you confirm it?” Sleepy was unnervingly silent on this point. But Sherlock felt he could make some educated guesses right now, and certainly after he’d done some more research he would be able to put the pieces together in a broad sense. Even if the alters didn’t want to tell him directly, he felt he could gauge their responses to his suggestions.

“Well, I’ve got another question for you,” Sherlock went on. “About something Fury said. You know I spoke with Fury? Not nearly as bad as everyone made him out to be,” he claimed, and Sleepy rolled his eyes, a very Indigo-like gesture. “He said first there was the overseer, then the guardian, then the one who is guarded, then himself, Fury.” Sherlock found this little riddle to be very intriguing. “You’re the guardian, aren’t you, and UnderHim is the overseer?”

“I guard _him_ ,” Sleepy seemed to confirm. “UnderHim listens to all, and says when we’re needed.”

“Right. So, who’s the one who is guarded?” There was a long pause, and for a second Sherlock thought maybe the alter didn’t know. Then his gaze darted away to stare at the wall, as if lost in thought. “Sleepy?” Sherlock finally prompted.

“We try to be safe,” Sleepy replied in a whisper. He seemed to be talking more to himself, and drew his feet up onto the couch under the blanket. Sherlock watched the transformation with some alarm. “We try to be safe, but always people hurt us. We must keep him safe.” He started to rock back and forth on the couch.

“Sleepy? SleepingHim!” Sherlock scooted as close as he dared, worried he’d upset the alter. “Sleepy, I promise, I don’t want to hurt Indigo or any of you. You’re safe here.”

“Safe, we must keep him safe,” Sleepy murmured, not looking at Sherlock, who was thinking seriously about trying to bring Indigo back, or maybe one of the other alters who were a little more communicative. Sleepy sniffled and to Sherlock’s horror he saw his eyes start to fill with tears.

“No, Sleepy, don’t cry!” Sherlock insisted. Tears were something messy and irrational that he did _not_ handle well. “I’m sorry I upset you, please don’t cry, let’s talk about something else. Er, do you want to watch telly? How about a biscuit?”

Without warning Sleepy flung himself at Sherlock, his arms going around his neck and his face buried against his shoulder. “What the h—l—“ Sherlock remarked, not sure if he should embrace him or not.

“You must keep him safe,” Sleepy demanded, and Sherlock could feel his tears soaking through his dressing gown.

He decided to risk rubbing his back. “Okay, I will try,” he agreed, still somewhat in shock. “But I do have a dangerous profession, I have enemies—Listen, listen, calm down,” Sherlock encouraged, holding him tightly now. “There’s no need to get upset. We’ll both look after him. Er, all of us. You’ve all certainly done well so far, given the circumstances. There’s no reason to think that won’t continue. Er, is there?” Sherlock had to admit to being rather confused at this point.

Sleepy sat back suddenly, rocking Sherlock slightly. He brushed haphazardly at his moist eyes and snuffled for a moment. “Sorry,” he finally said.

“No, it’s alright,” Sherlock promised. “I don’t mind hugging you. Are you okay?”

“I thought of _him_ being scared and alone,” Sleepy admitted.

“Don’t,” Sherlock told him firmly. As incredible as he found the alters, he could never forget they’d been brought about by serious trauma to Indigo, starting in his childhood, and that angered Sherlock on a deep level that surprised him when he examined it. “Don’t think about it. That’s the past, it won’t happen again, I won’t let it. _We_ won’t let it.”

Sleepy nodded resolutely. “We won’t,” he agreed.

“Enough questions about the past,” Sherlock decided firmly. “Let’s watch some telly. I have a feeling it will generate plenty of questions from you, and I think you need more experience with the outside world.”

“Okay,” Sleepy agreed. He picked the blanket back up and curled up beneath it, close to Sherlock but not touching. After some searching Sherlock located the remote and switched the telly on, hoping he could find something enlightening but not distressing. Maybe now that the alters were away from the remembered threat of Simmerson’s house they were going to display more complexities.

Sherlock just hoped he could handle them.

**

Sherlock hated sleeping. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, except for the waking up part. Why, if he’d been asleep for hours, giving his body what people _said_ it needed, did he wake up feeling so awful? Stiff, muzzy-headed, and _still tired_. What was the point?

He yanked his dressing gown back on over his pajamas and stumbled from the bedroom, where he’d finally persuaded SleepingHim to retire last night, to the kitchen, which was too bright and smelled disgustingly like food. Indigo sat at the table eating breakfast and barely blinked when Sherlock collapsed opposite him, sprawling his long limbs over half the table. Sherlock raised a hand, somehow both commanding and begging, and felt Indigo press a cup of tea in it. With great willpower Sherlock pulled the cup to his lips, finally a bit recharged by the rush of caffeine and sugar.

“Do you want something to eat?” Indigo asked, causing Sherlock to glare at him.

“No, I don’t want something to eat!” Sherlock replied grouchily, as though Indigo had suggested something truly bizarre, which he had.

“Okay,” Indigo agreed, unoffended, and went back to his breakfast. Sherlock’s eyes scanned the plate automatically. Toast, eggs, sausage—something didn’t seem right, though, and because of this cursed _sleep_ he had to endure, he didn’t know if this assessment was real or merely the misfiring of disoriented neurons. He gulped some more tea, hoping it would clarify things.

And then, as with so many things, a series of facts burst in his brain, like fireworks, so fast he couldn’t even articulate them, but he knew they were true and so was their conclusion.

“You’re not Indigo,” he accused, sitting up to properly face the stranger across from him.

The eyes that gazed back chilled him. “No?” not-Indigo replied tolerantly. “Who am I, then?”

He spoke like he was humoring Sherlock’s delusion, but the response confirmed it for the other man—Indigo, _real_ Indigo, would have been hurt by this accusation. But the question remained—who _was_ he? None of the alters acted this way—Sherlock didn’t think even Charlie could consciously pretend to this extent.

“You’re someone new,” he decided. “We’ve not met before.”

Not-Indigo merely kept eating. “Really, Sherlock—“

Sherlock banged hard on the table, which startled the other man. “Don’t _pretend_ to be him, d----t!” he demanded angrily. Different personalities he could handle; deception he could not.

Not-Indigo sighed in a resigned way and finally put his silverware down to give Sherlock his full attention. “Alright, I apologize,” he acknowledged. “Sometimes we’re called upon to imitate Indigo. I haven’t done it in a while and obviously I need more practice.”

“You called him Indigo,” Sherlock pointed out sharply.

“That’s what you know him as,” the alter explained.

“None of the others give him a name,” Sherlock noted. A monumental idea struck him. “Are you UnderHim?”

The man’s expression said yes. “I prefer to be called Hamish now,” he added matter-of-factly.

“Hamish,” Sherlock repeated, and he nodded. “Why don’t the others call you that?” He really wished he had his phone right now to film this, and his eyes scanned the room for it.

“I’d rather you didn’t film me,” Hamish told him instead. “I prefer to be unobtrusive. The older alters call me UnderHim because that’s how they first knew me, and I’m afraid the younger ones picked it up from them,” he went on, continuing with his breakfast. He took neat, efficient bites of each food in turn. “You may have noticed they have some issues with the concept of personal identity. If you call me Hamish they’ll know who you mean, though.”

“You seem to have more self-awareness than they do,” Sherlock noted, now cataloging all the ways he was different from Indigo, and what that could tell Sherlock about him.

“Yes,” Hamish confirmed shortly, as if this was only natural. Sherlock supposed it was, if he was not only the first alter but also the one who directed the others. “Will you tell me how you knew I wasn’t Indigo?” he requested politely.

“Only if you promise never to try to deceive me again,” Sherlock countered immediately.

Hamish’s eyes met his. “I promise,” he agreed, “though I can imagine circumstances in which I’m trying to deceive a third party, and don’t have a chance to warn you.”

“I would make reasonable exceptions,” Sherlock allowed, impressed with his precision. He rewatched the fireworks in his mind, this time in slow motion, so he could describe them. “You offered me something to eat,” he began. “Indigo never offers me something to eat.”

Hamish seemed to find this tidbit valuable. “Oh yes,” he replied after a moment, as if he was recalling something. “He makes food allegedly for himself, then lets you eat it, which helps circumvent your emotional issues regarding food.”

Sherlock blinked at him. “Usually we don’t just lay it out that way,” he noted flatly.

“He’s not the only one with issues, you know,” Hamish pointed out. He glanced down at his nearly-empty plate. “I seem to have failed on this point,” he commented tolerantly. “Shall I make some more toast, pretending it’s for me, but then give it to you?”

He seemed straightforward rather than mocking, which Sherlock appreciated. “If you do all the messy bits,” he allowed.

“Alright.” Hamish got up to toast some more bread and Sherlock watched him move around the kitchen, fascinated at the transformation from Indigo. “What else?” Hamish prompted.

“You were eating sausage,” Sherlock told him. “I’ve never seen Indigo eat sausage before.”

“Really?” They both thought back and came up blank. “I found it in the freezer. Perhaps Mrs. Hudson bought it for us.”

Sherlock did not miss the casual way he mentioned the housekeeper’s name, or referred to them as ‘us.’ “I don’t think Indigo actually likes sausage,” he posited. “Do _you_ like it?”

“I neither like nor dislike it,” Hamish shrugged, preparing the toast. “Butter and jam? I think he needs to eat more protein, his diet is too heavy in carbs.”

Hamish set the plate of toast down in front of Sherlock, who merely raised an eyebrow at him. After a moment Hamish took the plate back to his side of the table. After another moment he took a bite from one piece.

Finally Sherlock reached over and took the bitten piece of toast. “I do not have emotional issues regarding food,” he denied.

“We can work on them later,” Hamish deferred. “How else did you know I wasn’t Indigo?”

“You do sound like you’re plotting to impersonate him,” Sherlock decided.

“I’m interested in your insight.”

“ _Now_ you’re trying to flatter me.”

“I _am_ capable of manipulation,” Hamish admitted baldly. “It’s essential to my job of protecting Indigo. I give you my word, that is my primary concern.” His eyes blazed with the fire of a fanatic, and Sherlock felt his sincerity. “If I need to protect him by impersonating him someday, or instruct the others in it, greater accuracy would be vital.”

“You’ve never had to impersonate him before?” Sherlock questioned curiously.

“I have, but your enemies seem to possess a higher caliber of scrutiny than the average schoolteacher or commanding officer,” Hamish judged.

Sherlock had a brief vision of Hamish and Moriarty going toe-to-toe. It was somewhat satisfying to imagine the outcome. When his eyes focused again Hamish had raised an eyebrow at him.

“I see your point,” Sherlock agreed abruptly. “Do your best Indigo impression so I can correct it.” Hamish obliged. “D—n, we _have_ met before,” Sherlock realized. “At Simmerson’s house, when Lestrade showed us the ring the police found.” It irritated him to be fooled; he’d been giving Indigo the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was just afraid to be speaking in front of everyone. So much for compassion.

“One thing at a time,” Hamish requested.

Sherlock nodded, not forgetting the sidetrack. “You’re too…” He tried to think of the word he wanted. “Confident,” he decided. “You have too much presence.” That was something his brother had often told _him_ , which he’d never understood before. “Indigo blends in, he doesn’t want to be noticed.”

Hamish thought this over, then changed the way he held himself in the chair. It was subtle—he slumped his shoulders a little more, tipped his head down a bit. He seemed to shrink into himself, dull the aura of intelligence and watchfulness he projected.

“That’s incredible,” Sherlock praised, and Hamish looked up at him. “Your eyes are wrong, though,” he noted critically.

“Not sure I can change my eyes,” Hamish countered dryly, going back to his usual posture. He took a bite from his second piece of toast and Sherlock automatically reached over to steal it away.

“This is serious,” he chided.

“Yes, it is,” Hamish agreed, gazing at him intensely. “What’s wrong with my eyes?”

“Indigo’s eyes look—you know he’s seen bad things,” Sherlock tried to describe. Emotional metaphors were not his strong suit, by any means. “They’re sort of—melancholy. And yours are—“

“Yes?” Hamish prompted, when Sherlock didn’t continue.

“You look like you’ve seen bad things, and kicked their a-s,” Sherlock finally admitted.

The corner of Hamish’s mouth twitched, making Sherlock realize that was the first time he’d seen anything like a smile on him. “Well I’ll try to work on that,” he deadpanned.

“Indigo is quick to smile, even if it’s a fake one and his eyes are sad,” Sherlock added.

Hamish blinked at him. “Oh, you miss him,” he realized, and Sherlock immediately squirmed uncomfortably, drawing back from the table.

“Well, I want to tell him I’ve met you finally,” he insisted, slightly defensive. “I’m not sure he really believes me about all this anyway.”

“He believes you,” Hamish countered, a bit ominously. “It’s not the first time it’s occurred to him, but he always managed to ignore it. It’s alright to miss him, he would appreciate it,” he went on.

Sherlock stuck with the previous sentence. “He’s thought about having multiple personalities before?”

“He went to medical school, he studied the basic symptoms of various psychological disorders,” Hamish pointed out. “The blackouts, lack of specific childhood memories, our occasional indiscretions around trained professionals. We had to learn to blend in as well.”

“SleepingHim mentioned… hiding from doctors?” Sherlock probed.

“Psychological evaluations for the Army, med school classes, the court martial,” Hamish shrugged.

Sherlock nodded slowly. “Still, the eyes will give it away,” he reiterated. “Can you do that thing he does, when he zones out? That might help.”

Hamish looked slightly startled. “Oh. No, actually,” he admitted, which surprised Sherlock. “He developed that on his own. We can take advantage of it and step in if the situation warrants. But I’m not sure I could actually… mimic that.” He sounded intrigued by the idea.

“Well, you ought to work on it,” Sherlock instructed seriously. “If Indigo kneels there totally alert, calculating everyone’s weaknesses, someone will notice the difference.”

“We should test it with your brother,” Hamish suggested suddenly.

“We should!” Sherlock agreed eagerly, imagining Mycroft’s face when Hamish popped up. He savored the image for a moment, then reluctantly brushed it away. “But then we’d have to explain, and I’m not sure Indigo would like that. Plus, Mycroft would find some way to turn it to his advantage,” he predicted darkly.

Hamish prudently changed the subject. “Well, not to worry. Indigo is just having a rest. I thought he deserved it after that trip,” he explained.

This led Sherlock back to his earlier observation. “When Lestrade presented the ring— _you_ were the one who said it was Star’s,” he noted.

“It was,” Hamish shrugged. “Others verified it.”

“But why did _you_ say it?” Sherlock persisted. “Why not leave it to Indigo?”

“I wasn’t sure if he would remember, or speak up,” Hamish replied, which Sherlock found just slightly thin. “It was a crucial point, I couldn’t leave it to chance.”

“It _was_ a crucial point, wasn’t it,” Sherlock agreed, watching Hamish closely. “In fact, the _only_ solid evidence pointing to someone specific. And it was _you_ who suggested Lestrade go over the physical evidence again.” Suspicion was building in his mind.

Hamish did not give anything away, though. “I’m sure Lestrade had already thought about it,” he demurred, “especially after learning about things that had been left out of the report.”

“Like the torture chamber, and Simmerson’s argument with Sir James,” Sherlock specified sharply, “which were discovered by following _your_ suggestion for bringing out more alters.” He was beginning to feel like he’d been led, very carefully, to a given endpoint.

“You _wanted_ to meet more alters,” Hamish pointed out casually.

Sherlock pinned him with a look. “Did you have anything to do with Simmerson’s death?” What little he knew of the man sitting across from him told him he was certainly capable of it.

“You asked all the alters that question,” Hamish acknowledged.

“And they all said no.”

“They were all telling the truth,” Hamish asserted. He gave Sherlock a level gaze. “Time to stop asking.”

Sherlock sat back in his chair, hardly seeing Hamish in front of him as his mind raced. That was as close to an admission of guilt as he’d heard so far, but it left so many questions unanswered. And what he didn’t know, he couldn’t guard against. “If there’s any evidence—“

“There is nothing,” Hamish assured him smoothly, “to concern yourself with, Sherlock.” That could easily be another protestation of innocence, of ignorance, and it made Sherlock’s temper flare.

“G-------t, if something turns up later to implicate Indigo—“ he snarled.

Hamish was unruffled. “If anyone makes accusations against Indigo again, you and I will handle them,” he promised, “as we did this time.”

“Somehow I think this was more _your_ doing than mine,” Sherlock muttered.

“Well, I _have_ been looking after Indigo for longer,” Hamish conceded.

“Oh, are we going to talk about that now?” Sherlock asked sarcastically, still faintly bitter at being Hamish’s pawn.

“Yes, we are.”

This caught Sherlock by surprise. “We are?” he repeated suspiciously.

Hamish’s posture changed as he rested his chin on his hand and replied, with some amusement, “You have certainly set all the alters atwitter, Sherlock. Saucy is completely in love with you, SleepingHim _hugged_ you, Fury took your hand. You even got Charlie to cuddle with you!”

Sherlock could not tell if he was being complimented or mocked this time. “I like them,” he responded, slightly defensive. “They’ve all protected Indigo. They’re fascinating. If rather cagey about certain things,” he added accusingly.

“Yes, you’re very persistent, aren’t you?” Hamish observed. This was not necessarily a compliment either.

“That can’t have taken you by surprise.”

“No, I suppose not,” Hamish sighed. “I know you’re planning to research what happened in Indigo’s childhood. You have his birth name, I’m sure your brother could supply you with additional facts—“

“I don’t need Mycroft’s help!”

Hamish looked at him the way he had over the toast, as if Sherlock was the one being irrational. Not a judgment he was comfortable receiving from someone’s alternate personality.

“You could figure out enough to be dangerous,” Hamish went on after a moment, “enough to tell Indigo the wrong thing, and upset him unnecessarily.”

“So you’re going to tell me the _right_ thing?” Sherlock interpreted. He was suddenly no longer sure he would completely trust a story from Hamish.

“I’m going to _show_ you,” Hamish corrected. “If you’re up for another trip.”

“Where to?”

“Braxtonwood.” Sherlock tried and failed to recall the name. “It’s a small town, about two hours north of London,” Hamish went on. “That’s where Indigo grew up. I would _appreciate_ it if you didn’t look up anything in advance, but rather let me tell you,” he added preemptively.

Sherlock was not sure he could agree to this; his curiosity was too strong now. “Well, how will I know how to get there?” he protested.

“I’ll drive, if you hire a car.”

“ _Can_ you drive?” Indigo could, and had, driven them of course.

“Certainly.” Hamish paused a moment before continuing. “It will be an undercover mission,” he went on, with an air of conspiracy that he knew would hook Sherlock. “You take the collar off me and pretend I’m a free man, same as you. And you call me John.”

“John?”

“That’s our original name, John Watson,” Hamish reminded him.

“I knew that.”

Hamish made no comment on this. “People might recognize me,” he explained, “so the easiest thing, which I think Indigo would prefer, would be to pretend I was just John grown up, an Army doctor who’s now left the service, perhaps working at a clinic in London.”

Sherlock did not miss the slight wistfulness for the life that could have been. “And who am I?” he wanted to know.

“Hmm,” Hamish replied thoughtfully. “Would you like to be my boyfriend?”

The proposal was innocent, and also not, at the same time, and Sherlock smiled a little. “Alright.” Then he frowned. “You _will_ bring Indigo back, though, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” Hamish promised. “Not until we come back here, though. He never wanted to return to Braxtonwood. I think it’s the best setting for what I want to tell you, though.” He tilted his head to the side. “Can you take off the collar, then?”

“You could take it off yourself,” Sherlock challenged. “It’s just some kind of—slave superstition, not removing your own collar. And you’re nobody’s slave,” he judged of Hamish’s attitude.

The alter shrugged. “Alright, I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he explained, and neatly unhooked the collar around his throat. It had been ill-suited to him, anyway. “I’ll take it with me, on the off chance we run into someone we know. Are you going to get dressed?” he prompted Sherlock, who was still marveling over the differences between him and Indigo, especially without the collar.

Sherlock stood. “When are we leaving?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Hamish replied. “We’ll stay overnight there, come back tomorrow.”

“Right.” Sherlock decided to run through a quick shower but at the last minute stuck his head back out of his bedroom. “Are you going to pack a bag for me?” he asked curiously. Indigo always did.

Hamish looked vaguely amused at him. “Alright,” he agreed, as if he hadn’t been planning to. Sherlock went with it, though; he hated packing.

Not long after they headed down the stairs, Hamish carrying a small suitcase that held both of their necessities for one night. Sherlock had arranged for them to pick up a car, and Hamish had made reservations for them at a small inn near the town. Sherlock had shown great restraint, he felt, in not Googling the destination the moment he reached his phone.

“Oh, you’re not going out again, then?” Mrs. Hudson asked, popping out of her room unexpectedly.

Sherlock remembered Indigo usually informed her about these things, and for an instant he felt almost… guilty to be caught with someone who _wasn’t_ Indigo. Then he realized Mrs. Hudson probably couldn’t tell the difference yet.

“We’ll just be gone overnight,” Sherlock finally told her. “Someplace called Braxtonwood. Can you give her the number of the inn?” he asked Hamish, who clearly hadn’t thought of this.

“Oh, right, of course.” He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and started scribbling on it.

Mrs. Hudson was giving him an odd look. “This is Hamish,” Sherlock finally introduced.

“Hello, nice to meet you,” Hamish claimed, shaking her hand before he gave her the contact information.

“Oh, hello, dear,” Mrs. Hudson replied, admirably going with the flow. She’d probably never shaken hands with a slave before—although this person wasn’t wearing a collar—although she probably expected him to, given his resemblance to Indigo—Sherlock decided not to think about it any further, and hope Mrs. Hudson did the same.

“Time to go!” he announced, and he and Hamish were out the door.

**

The drive was dull. Hamish did not feel the need to fill the silence, which in most cases Sherlock would have appreciated, except right now he was on a self-imposed ban from his phone—the only way he could avoid looking up anything about their destination. “G-d, why are there so many _cows_?” he complained, when they streamed by another herd of them in a field.

“People like milk and beef,” was Hamish’s succinct answer.

That, he knew, or could make a guess at; perhaps it fell under common knowledge, Sherlock could never be sure about that kind of thing. But a few questions had revealed that, like the other alters, Hamish’s knowledge and interest mainly revolved around Indigo. If he knew something, like biochemistry or Middle Eastern geography, it was because Indigo knew it, and there was a slight delay as Hamish accessed the information, like opening a whole different set of folders on a computer. Sherlock found it fascinating, of course. Though also somewhat irritating, as Hamish failed to have an opinion on even the things he _did_ know, unless it was like the sausage where he thought foremost about Indigo’s health.

“But SleepingHim said _he_ likes hearing me play the violin,” Sherlock insisted, when Hamish claimed to have no particular affinity for any music. He tried not to let a whine creep into his tone.

Hamish smirked a bit anyway, eyes on the road. “That’s SleepingHim, not me,” he pointed out, which Sherlock really felt was splitting hairs. “As he only appears at night when Indigo is sleeping, he hasn’t had much opportunity to listen to music.” His gaze slid briefly sideways to Sherlock. “I think he likes it because he likes _you_ ,” he added, in a mollifying tone. “He likes to know you’re home, awake. He feels everyone is safer that way.”

This indeed perked Sherlock back up. “Well, good. Of course he’s safe at Baker Street. I showed him the security system last night,” he went on. “Does he remember? I should’ve shown _you_ on the way out.”

“If it’s security-related, he remembers,” Hamish assured him. “And _I_ know because _he_ knows. Actually, I knew already, because Indigo knows,” he reflected.

Sherlock avoided expressing his amazement and delight for the labyrinth of Indigo’s mind yet again; Hamish didn’t seem to find it entirely complimentary for some reason. “I suppose, but there are certain things that everyone needs to know for themselves, so they can act quickly in a crisis,” he said instead.

This led to another faint smirk from Hamish. “Like using a mobile and memorizing phone numbers?”

“It’s important,” Sherlock insisted. “If there’s an emergency they can’t be asking you to ask Indigo, then back to you, then to _them_. I’m sure you, Charlie, and Sleepy at least could learn. I’m not sure about Saucy and Fury, frankly.”

“Oh, neither of them would be around for long in a crisis,” Hamish agreed. “Sleepy and Charlie would love for you to teach them _anything_ , though.”

“Not you?” Sherlock questioned at the omission.

“If I don’t already know it somehow, I’ll gladly remedy that,” Hamish promised, gazing straight ahead. “But the alters find you as fascinating as you find them, so they would appreciate the attention.”

Sherlock frowned as he parsed this. “Hamish,” he finally said, and this time he was completely serious, “do you not like me?” He wasn’t sure if this hurt, really, but it _was_ concerning.

“No, I like you quite a bit,” Hamish replied, matter-of-fact without being soothing. Sherlock didn’t mind that; he did not require soothing. “You are actually my favorite person outside of my own body.”

“Okay,” Sherlock responded. “Thank you.” Was that the appropriate response? He wasn’t sure traditional etiquette covered this sort of situation, though he wouldn’t have paid much attention to that anyway.

“Mrs. Hudson is my second-favorite,” Hamish went on thoughtfully. “Detective Inspector Lestrade seems like a nice fellow, though of course with Indigo being a slave it’s harder to be friends.”

Sherlock was not very interested in the rest of the list. “But?” he prompted.

“Indigo is always first,” Hamish told him firmly. “Indigo _has_ to be first. If anything ever happened to him—well, everything we’ve been through would be in vain.”

His knuckles were white where they gripped the steering wheel and Sherlock reached over to massage one. “It’s alright,” he promised, not sure what exactly was alright. _Something_ certainly had to be.

Hamish made a conscious effort to relax. “And the alters, I have to think of them, too,” he went on in a lighter tone. “You’ve taken on a lot of responsibility with this lot, you know. Right now you like them. But they can be difficult to manage.”

“You speak as if you aren’t one of them,” Sherlock observed.

“Well, I was the first, and I created them,” Hamish noted. “They can lose focus if not directed properly.”

“And Indigo created _you_.”

“Subconsciously,” Hamish agreed. “Without really meaning to, or knowing that he’d done it.”

“As a child,” Sherlock further specified, and Hamish made a gesture of agreement. “So you must’ve been a child, too, really,” he reasoned. “You couldn’t have had an adult’s mind right away. Could you?” The metaphysics were beginning to outpace his research.

“I suppose I _was_ a child,” Hamish confirmed slowly, as if he’d never thought about it before. “But children can be very different from each other. Have you ever heard of those child soldiers, ten-year-olds with machine guns? We saw some in Afghanistan.” Sherlock thought perhaps that sounded familiar, just the sort of ghastly thing the world would come up with. “That’s the sort of child I was,” Hamish decided grimly. “I was at war and I had no distractions, I just had the mission.”

“Of keeping Indigo safe.”

“Trying,” Hamish corrected, as if he hadn’t always succeeded. “It’s not me controlling him or the others like a puppet master, you know. He has free will, he can make choices. _I_ wanted him to run away,” he revealed after a moment. “But he didn’t want to. There were… others to think about.”

Sherlock took the opening right away. “What others?”

This was what Hamish had brought him on this trip to learn about, so at first Sherlock was annoyed by his hesitation. Then he took a more emotional slant and decided that perhaps it was difficult for Hamish to talk about. “Don’t crash the car,” Sherlock warned, though the other man had given no sign of doing so. “If you’re going to be emotional, pull over first.”

He meant this sincerely, and compassionately, but Hamish barked out a laugh in response—very Indigo-like, really—and kept driving. “It’s alright,” he promised Sherlock in a straightforward tone. “I was just thinking. There were three children in the family,” he went on. “A brother and a sister for Indigo. He didn’t want to leave them.”

“So one or both parents was the abuser?” Sherlock surmised, trying to keep himself detached.

“That’s right,” Hamish nodded steadily. “Father, actually, though the mother didn’t do much about it. I suppose she was his victim, too,” he added, “but she ought to have done her duty and protected her children.”

“Indigo never mentioned that he has siblings,” Sherlock noted, purposefully veering off course a bit.

“Why would he?” Hamish shrugged. “They’re not relevant to his current life. And anyway, there’s only one now.”

A chill went down Sherlock’s spine. “What happened to the other one?” Hamish gave him a look that said nothing, but also everything, and Sherlock turned to stare out the window. “G-d.”

“I’m sure I warned you that you might not want to know, didn’t I?” Hamish asked lightly. “One doesn’t get alternate personalities from a paper cut, you know.”

“I know,” Sherlock snapped, and then was silent.

Hamish’s eyes darted between Sherlock and the road. “Do you want me to stop?” he offered. “We can go back to London—“

“No,” Sherlock denied. “I want to know. I want to see.”

“Alright,” Hamish agreed. “Charlie is the youngest alter, he was created at Simmerson’s house,” he went on, taking an unexpected jump in the timeline. “Probably the most sophisticated and versatile alter, actually—“

“Aside from you?” Sherlock questioned, pushing his mind back into analytical mode.

Hamish gave a faint smirk at that. “I delegate active duties, so I can keep an eye on the larger picture,” he explained. “Charlie had a difficult job, he had to please the master but with the minimum possible harm to others.”

“Why show restraint at all?” Sherlock wanted to know. “It would have been safer, surely, to not worry about the other slaves.”

Hamish shrugged. “I am part of Indigo, I can’t entirely escape his own feelings, even when it’s in his best interests,” he admitted. “There was also the matter of how the other slaves would retaliate against us. And, should anyone ever offer him proof of what had happened, like video—“ He shook his head. “Well, there’s a lot to think about with every action, and not usually much time to do it in.”

“There’s _not_ video, is there?” Sherlock checked quickly.

“Not that I know of,” Hamish answered. He didn’t seem overly worried about it now. “Before that was Saucy, when he first became a slave,” he continued. “Rather obvious, really. Please the master, avoid a beating, keep the memories locked away.”

“Saucy doesn’t really _like_ it, though,” Sherlock protested. “That’s what Charlie said, anyway. You couldn’t at least have him enjoy it?”

“Does a rag enjoy mopping up a spill?” Hamish compared coldly. “No, it just does its job, and goes on. I _care_ about the alters, but ultimately they are tools, with one overarching purpose—“

“To protect Indigo, yes,” Sherlock finished, perhaps too flatly.

“That was good enough for you a few days ago,” Hamish shot back, slightly defensive.

Sherlock paused a moment. “Since then I’ve been thinking more about what Indigo would want to happen,” he admitted.

Hamish all but rolled his eyes. “Yes, well… I already told you, I can’t completely supersede that, even if I wanted to,” he reiterated. “Saucy enjoys what he does as much as possible, but Indigo doesn’t enjoy being expected to have sex with strangers at _all_ , so I haven’t got much to work with, have I?”

The subject apparently touched a nerve—and not just for Hamish. “Did,” Sherlock corrected coolly.

“What?”

“Saucy enjoyed what he _did_ as much as possible,” Sherlock rephrased. “Indigo is not expected to have sex with strangers any longer. Or ever again. Are you telling me it was really Saucy having sex with me at first? Because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the window.

He heard Hamish sigh. “No, it wasn’t,” he confirmed. “I don’t send Saucy in right away, I wait to see if Indigo can deal with it first. You were… considerate.”

“Lovely.”

“Look, what are you upset about?” Hamish finally asked him, sincerely. “You wanted to know what it’s like, I’m telling you. The alters love you because you’re different from everything they’ve experienced. Better.”

“That’s not a high bar.”

“Granted, no.”

Sherlock let out a breath and uncoiled himself, trying to relax. Hamish was full of good points, and it was irrational to be mad at him for the circumstances he’d tried to deal with. “People who know me would never believe I was good for someone,” he finally replied dryly.

“You’re good for six someones,” Hamish assured him.

“Before Saucy,” Sherlock went on, wanting more facts rather than comfort, “who was the next alter back?”

“Fury,” Hamish confirmed.

“When Indigo was a teenager.” Hamish did not dispute this. “No new ones were needed when he was in uni or med school, or the Army?”

“No,” Hamish replied. “We were hardly needed at all, actually.”

“The major with the knife,” Sherlock reminded him.

“Well, yes.”

“And Sleepy said he was needed in the Army.”

“We were deployed to Afghanistan,” Hamish noted. “A little extra watchfulness was not a bad thing. Anyway, Indigo was good at being a soldier,” he judged. “An Army doctor. He had a cause, a duty, to help people. He was proud of what he did.”

Sherlock did not miss the recurring language Hamish used—duty, cause, mission. He supposed that should not surprise him, that the alter’s outlook on the world was rather militant. He had been born to war, and apparently such feelings ran in the family.

“The event he was court-martialed for—“

“None of _my_ doing,” Hamish snorted, with definite disapproval in his tone.

“He crossed enemy lines to perform surgery on a child,” Sherlock articulated, though obviously Hamish knew the story well, “and was caught in crossfire when he returned.”

“Very much a Dr. John Watson thing to do,” Hamish assured him.

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably. One bought a new slave, one gave them a new name, that was just how it worked; he’d never thought about them having names of their own. Of course most slaves had been born as such, and sold and renamed several times before they even remembered it.

“Ought I to call him John?” he finally asked.

This earned a glance from Hamish. “Um, hmm,” he replied vaguely, obviously not having thought about that before. “No, I think not,” he finally advised. “That part of his life is over now. Mmm, he likes the name Indigo,” he added. “John Watson is rather prosaic, isn’t it?”

Sherlock was not entirely convinced. “Does he want to be set free?” he forced himself to ask.

At this, Hamish tensed. “Don’t ever suggest that to him,” he ordered, “unless you have the paperwork in hand, ready to go.” Finally he glanced at Sherlock, whose eyebrows had shot up, and tried to relax. “The idea has been dangled in front of us too many times, then taken away,” he tried to explain. “Don’t give him any reason to hope for it, unless you’re serious.”

Sherlock nodded his understanding and was quiet for a while. He cared about Indigo—obviously—liked having him around, taking care of things for him, going places with him, listening to Sherlock’s theories. Would things be so different if Indigo was free, just an employee like Mrs. Hudson? A live-in employee, with intimate duties as well as domestic ones. Or maybe he wouldn’t actually be paid—one didn’t generally pay that sort of person, did one? But he could leave if he got tired of Sherlock’s eccentricities, and Sherlock didn’t like that thought at all. Maybe that was wrong of him. But he wasn’t prepared to take that risk—not yet, anyway.

“Fury said something curious—“ he finally began, which must have been an odd comment after the silence.

“You’ve only met Fury twice,” Hamish noted. “Conversation is not his strong suit. He often says curious things.”

“You’re being evasive,” Sherlock judged.

“Yes. We’re getting close.” Sherlock turned to look at the countryside, as if he could glean something fundamental about Indigo from the dilapidated outbuildings and rusty fences they passed.

“Farm country, not prosperous,” he assessed.

“No. This is Braxtonwood. Don’t blink, you’ll miss it.” Hamish drove the car down what Sherlock assumed was the main street, a rather sad collection of antique shops, hair salons, and no doubt greasy diners, mixed in with boarded-up storefronts. There were admittedly a few nice Victorian homes with mature trees as they turned down a couple of residential streets—if you liked that sort of thing—but all in all, not a place someone would be eager to call home. Then again, Sherlock grew up in a comfortable mansion and came to hate it, so what did _he_ know.

He thought to glance at Hamish, who was driving carefully but with a faraway air. “Are you alright?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” Hamish assured him. “It can’t hurt us anymore, being here.”

“I’m glad you realize that.”

“Indigo wouldn’t feel the same, that’s why I can’t let him back in until we return to London,” he reiterated, glancing at Sherlock as if he was going to object.

“I understand,” Sherlock replied. “He was very upset at being back at Simmerson’s house, despite my assurances.”

“He’s emotional,” Hamish shrugged, as if this was inconvenient but unavoidable. Sherlock knew what he meant.

“Is that it?” Sherlock turned his head to follow the last house as they passed it.

“Yes,” Hamish agreed flatly. “I could show you the school we went to, the grocery store his parents shopped at—“

“Are they relevant?”

“No.” Sherlock was not interested, then. “This is the relevant place, up ahead,” Hamish went on. “Looks like someone is living there now. They’ve fixed it up.”

They were approaching a small farmhouse, surrounded by fences and with several outbuildings scattered around. As they drew closer Sherlock could see the wear, the patches, could guess the uses of various implements lying around; but he didn’t know which of these facts, if any, were important to the story.

“Remember to call me John,” Hamish said as he pulled into the driveway. “I’ll see if the owners will let us poke around a bit.”

“Indi—you— _John_ lived here?” Sherlock surmised, stumbling over the right name.

“If you can call it living,” Hamish replied with pitch-black humor as he got out of the car. Sherlock followed him, gazing around the vacant land as if keeping an eye out for spectral dangers.

Hamish started up the steps of the front porch, the old wood creaking under his feet. Sherlock concluded from his comments that the people living here now were _not_ Indigo’s parents, but when he heard the front door opening he hurried up the steps near Hamish anyway.

An older woman stuck her head out with a wary expression. “Yes?”

“Mrs. McGillicutty!” Hamish recognized with surprised delight, or feigned it well. “You’re the librarian at the elementary school, I remember you helping me pick out books.”

She smiled even though Sherlock could see she didn’t recognize him. “Oh, that was a while ago, I’m retired now,” she explained to him.

“What are you doing here?” Hamish asked her, then remembered which side of the door he was on and quickly added, “Oh, sorry, I’m John Watson, I used to live here—“

The change in her expression was almost comical. Recognition of the name followed almost instantly by dismay as the story associated with the name surfaced, followed slightly less swiftly by a smile plastered onto her face out of politeness. “Well my goodness, you’re all grown up, I wouldn’t have recognized you,” she said pleasantly, in that way of older ladies. Hamish smiled patiently. “Robert, we’ve got company!” she called over her shoulder. “Would you like some tea?”

Sherlock did not want tea, he wanted _answers_ , the type one couldn’t comfortably discuss with Mrs. McGillicutty around. “That would be lovely, thank you,” Hamish told her, and followed her inside.

An older man had shuffled into the hall. “My husband, Robert,” the woman introduced. “Dear, this is John Watson, he used to live here. Before Beckwiths.”

They shook hands. “Pleased to meet you, sir.” Mrs. McGillicutty glanced at Sherlock, who was letting Hamish lead. “This is Sherlock, my boyfriend,” Hamish explained easily, and more handshaking and meaningless remarks followed.

Finally they were walking through the house to the parlor, Sherlock’s eyes hungrily swallowing every detail. “We were in the neighborhood and I wanted to show Sherlock where I grew up,” Hamish told them as they settled onto the stiff couch with their tea. Mrs. McGillicutty nodded hurriedly as if she understood completely. In reality, she did _not_ understand why he would want to return here, but Sherlock avoided blurting this out. “You’ve fixed the place up nicely,” Hamish commented leadingly, looking around the room.

“Oh, that was mainly Beckwiths,” Mrs. McGillicutty demurred. “He wanted a farmhouse to renovate, and this had sat empty for several years after—“ She froze suddenly. “Oh. Perhaps you’d rather have tea in the kitchen?”

Something had happened in this room, then, Sherlock realized. He tried to split his attention between it and Hamish’s face, which wore a mask of pleasant serenity. “No, it’s fine, hardly looks the same at all,” Hamish assured her. “Have you been here long, then?”

Why a retired librarian and a retired train conductor wanted to live in an isolated farmhouse with a bad history was not of interest to Sherlock. Hamish asked agreeable questions, however, and deftly took Sherlock’s hand when he started drumming his fingers on his knee. It took Sherlock some time to realize that Hamish was expertly setting the McGillicuttys at ease, with his stories about med school and the Army. They were greatly impressed by this, encouraged that he’d made something of himself after a rough beginning. Sherlock was given the job of forensic scientist, like one of those detectives on the telly. Only Hamish’s constant squeezing of his hand kept Sherlock restrained in his responses.

Finally Hamish set his cup aside and Sherlock straightened alertly. “I wonder, would you mind if we looked around a bit?” he asked, as if it was just a trifle, and not the entire purpose of their visit. “I wanted to show Sherlock my old room, and the yard.”

Having been relaxed by such an enjoyable visit, Mrs. McGillicutty was happy to allow it, and at last Sherlock got to see the rest of the house. This Beckwiths had apparently changed a great deal, however. Maybe that was for the best.

They went upstairs, the steps creaking with every move. “This was my sister’s room,” Hamish explained to Sherlock, “and this is the one I shared with my brother. It was white then,” he added dryly. The room had been given a decidedly feminine makeover, heavy on the lavender and lace.

Mentioning his siblings made their hostess tense, Sherlock noted. “Er, how _is_ your sister?” she inquired quickly.

“Oh, she’s doing well,” Hamish promised smoothly. “She’s a solicitor in Edinburgh, got married a couple years ago. We’re to be uncles soon.”

“How lovely!” Mrs. McGillicutty replied, reassured that all was well with the world.

For a moment Sherlock was pleased at the phrasing—“we’re to be uncles” meant he and John were in a long-term, serious relationship, part of the family. Then he mentally kicked himself: John was really Hamish, who was really Indigo, who wasn’t his boyfriend but rather his slave, and odds-wise the entire story about the sister had been made up on the spot.

“And this was my parents’ room,” Hamish went on of the largest bedroom. “It really looks lovely now, it was rather plain before. Do you mind if I open the closet?” he asked Mrs. McGillicutty politely. “It had the stairs to the attic—oh, how odd.” There was no attic access in the closet, but Sherlock got the impression Hamish really hadn’t expected to find them. Which meant he really just wanted Sherlock to see the closet, so he scrutinized it quickly.

“There’s a trapdoor in the hall,” Mrs. McGillicutty said helpfully. “Perhaps Beckwiths moved it.”

“Yes, that would make sense,” Hamish agreed. “The closet was a rather awkward place for it, anyway.” They went back downstairs. “Would you mind if we looked ‘round the yard a bit? No need to trouble yourself, I’ll let you know when we’re off.”

They went out the back door by themselves, Hamish pointing and talking about flower gardens and apple trees until they were out of earshot. “What happened in the parlor?” Sherlock hissed at him. “And the closet?”

“First let’s start with the well,” Hamish replied. They were standing near a slightly raised, covered cistern, facing just a bit angled away from it, and Hamish was expertly pointing off into the distance, pantomiming an entirely different conversation for their hosts, who watched them from the kitchen window.

“What about it?”

“That’s where they found the body,” Hamish told him simply, and Sherlock nodded grimly.

“Of your brother?”

“That’s right.”

The actual well was really not that important, but Sherlock committed the outside to memory as they turned past it to look in another direction. “The father killed him?” he said, bracing himself.

“The father was ultimately responsible,” Hamish replied evenly, “but technically it may have been an accident, or suicide.”

Sherlock forced a smile on his face to match Hamish’s, as though the childhood memories he was reliving were fond ones. “How old was he?”

“Ten.”

“How old was Indigo?”

“Also ten. They were twins.”

Sherlock spun away from the house and Hamish laughed and caught him, just two blokes messing around outside. The revelation had caught Sherlock like a punch in the gut, though.

“Let’s go,” Hamish told him. “Relax and smile.”

Sherlock tried, especially when Mrs. McGillicutty came back out to say good-bye, and jokes were made at Sherlock’s expense as an urbanite. He was not sure he was entirely convincing, however. “Oh, are your allergies acting up again?” Hamish asked in an affectionately teasing tone. “I shouldn’t have brought you out here to nature!”

“Nice to see you, John!” Mrs. McGillicutty called after them. “So glad you stopped by!”

Finally they were back in the car, on the road. “Where are we staying for the night?” Sherlock asked, as if there was nothing else to think or talk about.

“There’s an inn about ten miles down the road,” Hamish explained. “The reservation is in your name. Doubt they’d recognize John Watson, but you never know. This is the type of area where you either leave and never come back, or you stay for life—could be someone we know working there.”

Sherlock nodded and stayed silent, cataloging his questions dispassionately, or trying to. The memory of Sleepy talking about ‘him’ scared and alone hit him at just the wrong moment, undermining his efforts at calm.

“Sherlock, are you alright?” Hamish asked curiously.

“No, of course not,” Sherlock snapped, and Hamish nodded.

“Right, foolish question,” Hamish agreed. “We aren’t here for the breweries, are we?”

“ _Are_ there breweries?” Sherlock asked, momentarily distracted, even though he didn’t really care for breweries.

“Yes,” Hamish assured him. “Ask the clerk if he recommends any. We’ve got a standalone cabin, don’t be worried if you don’t see me in the car.”

“Is the reservation for two?” Sherlock questioned as they stopped somewhat of a walk from the main lobby.

“Yes.”

Sherlock went to check in and texted the cabin number to Hamish, then headed across the grounds to where the apparently empty car was parked near the cabin. Hamish popped up as he approached. “Just being discreet,” he assured Sherlock, wheeling their luggage up the path.

The cabin had a sitting room, a bathroom, and a bedroom with a large bed; also quite a lot of faux-rustic décor, such as antlers made of plastic. Sherlock assumed it had been chosen for privacy, not as a reflection of Hamish’s taste.

“Can we talk now?” he asked impatiently.

“Let me get a fire going first, it’s getting chilly,” Hamish deferred, so Sherlock paced unhelpfully. Hamish sat back after a moment, watching the gas fire he’d managed to light with satisfaction. “There. Might see if there’s electric heat as well—“

“Hamish—“ Sherlock began to interrupt impatiently, then stopped himself. “Are you cold? Indigo is always cold—“ He was now uncertain what might indicate some sort of trauma from the past.

Hamish gave a faint smile as he stood and moved to the couch. “Come on,” he encouraged Sherlock, who finally sat down beside him. “Let’s talk. What first?”

“The brother.”

“His name was Jamie,” Hamish began. “Twins, as I said. Best friends. _Only_ friends—Harriet was five years younger, and a girl.” He tried to keep his tone light. “Jamie wanted to run away, John didn’t. One night Jamie disappeared.”

“He’d tried to run away?” Sherlock surmised.

Hamish shrugged. “I’ve examined John’s memories… I’m led to believe the father didn’t directly kill him. Jamie might’ve stumbled into the well in the dark—it wasn’t as well-covered then—or he might’ve killed himself, as a way to escape.”

Sherlock nodded, appreciating the matter-of-fact way Hamish described this. Though he _was_ growing more tense, and Sherlock took one of his hands in his, rubbing at the knuckles gently.

“It’s just that Jamie is very important,” Hamish said suddenly. “They only had each other, and then Jamie _left_. So John was all alone, really.”

“When did you come in?” Sherlock asked him.

“When they found Jamie’s body,” Hamish replied, which Sherlock had suspected. “John didn’t want to be alone. He needed someone to keep him company, to give him advice.”

Sherlock frowned. “How could he interact with you? And why didn’t he remember you?” he wanted to know.

“It took me a while to get settled,” Hamish tried to explain. “At first I was more like a voice in his head. Like when you think to yourself, only the answers you get aren’t entirely expected.”

Sherlock imagined a stranger suddenly showing up in his mind palace. “That would be a little creepy,” he had to admit.

“Yes, especially for a child,” Hamish agreed dryly. “Then I found that I could block or dull his memories of certain things, act more through subconscious suggestions or even take over his body if necessary. That seemed the better route.”

“And then you made SleepingHim, to guard him at night,” Sherlock suggested.

“Yes. It was better to be watchful,” Hamish confirmed. “There was a limit to what could be done, without being treated worse. But we learned ways to dissuade our enemies.”

Sherlock sensed the weight of what was not being said and swallowed, his throat dry. Indigo—John—was intelligent and resourceful, he would have adapted to whatever situation he’d been thrown into, learned to keep himself safer. Even if he had to create another, less emotional personality to do so.

“You’re the overseer, Sleepy is the guardian,” Sherlock described. “That’s what Fury said. Then came the one who is guarded. What does that mean? Sleepy got very upset when I asked him,” he added with concern.

Hamish had a curious little smile on his face, though. “He would,” he replied vaguely. “Would you like to meet him?”

Sherlock stared at him. “Another alter?” he guessed in surprise. Despite the circumstances his excitement began to rise.

Hamish was outright grinning now. “A very important one,” he promised. “The one we all must keep safe.”

“That’s not Indigo?” Sherlock asked in confusion.

“Mmm, it’s hard to explain,” Hamish admitted apologetically. “He’s a symbol, really, of what we have to protect, what we can’t let be lost.”

“Yes, I want to meet him,” Sherlock insisted, in case this wasn’t obvious.

“Don’t film him,” Hamish warned as he stood and went to the suitcase. “Don’t pepper him with a lot of questions, either, the others don’t like him to be upset.” He dug in the suitcase and produced a pad of paper and some crayons, which he set on the table.

Sherlock went to stand beside him curiously. “Who is he?”

“Jamie,” Hamish answered, and then he wasn’t Hamish anymore, or Indigo, or anyone Sherlock had met before, but rather someone bouncing with positive energy, who seized upon the crayons and sprawled across the table and chair as only someone with young joints should be able to do. Sherlock watched in astonishment as he spilled several of the crayons out onto the table, selected one with intense concentration, then began to draw.

“Jamie,” Sherlock said, when he could find his voice.

The alter looked up as if just now seeing Sherlock, his face open and innocent, smiling freely. It was easy to think of him like a child. “Hello!” he greeted cheerfully.

“Hello,” Sherlock returned. He remembered suddenly that he was not good with children and the thought flashed through his mind that he wished Indigo was here to help him. Which was a sign that he was getting just as turned around by all this as Indigo was, he supposed. “Er, do you know who I am?” he tried.

“Oh, yes!” Jamie replied brightly. “Uncle UnderHim said you’re my friend. He said you’re Uncle Sherlock.”

The title brought brief, hideous visions of Mycroft spawning, but Sherlock tried to toss that aside—obviously here ‘uncle’ was meant as an honorific. “Yes, that’s right,” Sherlock agreed. He was at a loss as to what to do next, since none of his usual questions for new alters seemed to apply.

Jamie apparently sensed he was dealing with a novice here. “Would you like to color with me?” he offered.

“Yes, alright,” Sherlock agreed gratefully, sitting down at the table. He stared at the blank piece of paper Jamie gave him. “Um, what should I draw?”

“How about a pirate ship?” Jamie suggested readily. “ _Pirates_ is my favorite game to play with my brother,” he went on, selecting a new crayon. “I’m drawing a treasure map to show him!”

Sherlock wondered if he could get away without drawing anything, as he had no idea what a pirate ship ought to look like. Was it anything like a freighter? He’d been on those. “Your brother, John? When did you last see him?” he asked carefully.

“Oh, just a minute ago,” Jamie assured him. “Just before I came here.”

Sherlock nodded as though he understood this. Maybe this alter wasn’t aware of the passage of time like the others were. “How old are you, Jamie?” Sherlock asked.

“I’m ten!” he answered, a bit boastfully. “And so’s my brother, we’re twins. Have _you_ got a brother?”

“Er, yes,” Sherlock replied, startled by the unexpected question. “He’s quite a bit older than me, though. Where do you and your brother live?” he went on, mindful of Hamish’s warning not to interrogate him.

“In the country,” Jamie replied, which he seemed to feel was a satisfactory answer. “We’ve got a big yard, and the woods with a creek, and some apple trees!”

Sherlock did not see the point of any of those things, though he had a vague sense that other children might have enjoyed them—maybe _all_ children were supposed to enjoy them?—but Jamie seemed very happy and _that_ was really the point.

“Look, here’s my map so far,” Jamie went on excitedly, showing him the paper.

“How does it work?” Sherlock was forced to ask, unable to decipher the symbols.

“Well you start here,” Jamie said, pointing to the beginning of a red-dotted path, “and you follow this line around the tree and past the rock and over the creek and up this tree then back down and over the creek again, then around to the back of the barn, and the X marks where the treasure is!”

Sherlock felt like he was dealing with an alien civilization. “The X indicates where the treasure is buried?” Jamie nodded. “Then why not go straight there, instead of wandering all over the place?”

Jamie blinked at him. “You’ve never played _pirates_ before, have you?” he observed sagely.

“No,” Sherlock confessed. “I didn’t really… _play_ with other children. I read books,” he added, trying not to get defensive. “And I performed scientific experiments, like dissecting insects.” He wondered if that was too weird for the boy.

But Jamie just nodded. “You sound like Johnny,” he proclaimed, which startled and pleased Sherlock. “Once we designed and built a trap for butterflies, so Johnny could look at them up close! He drew out their whole life cycle from a book.” Sherlock had done this, too. “But it’s more fun with someone else, I think,” Jamie opined.

Sherlock had no data to offer on that point. “And, um, is there really a treasure buried under the X?” he asked, guessing not as Jamie had just drawn it himself.

“No,” Jamie confirmed, as if he didn’t even _want_ a treasure. “We just dig in the ground for a bit until we get tired of it. But sometimes we find things!” he went on excitedly. “Like bits of tinfoil and marbles and old nails.”

He seemed thrilled by these discoveries, so Sherlock tried to nod along. “Very imaginative,” he allowed, handing the map back.

“Where do _you_ live?” Jamie wanted to know, giving Sherlock an unnervingly intense look.

“London.”

“Oh, wow.” This seemed to impress him. “Do you live by yourself?”

“No, I—“ Sherlock was not quite sure how to explain this point, but Jamie’s expectant gaze did not allow him to backtrack. “I have a housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson,” he finally said. “And there’s someone named Indigo, do you know him?”

Jamie tipped his head to the side, the characteristic pose for listening to Hamish. “Uncle UnderHim says he’s a friend,” he relayed after a moment.

“Yes, a good friend,” Sherlock agreed.

“You’ve not drawn anything,” Jamie observed, his attention flittering to the blank page in front of Sherlock.

“Er, no. I’m not really sure where to begin,” Sherlock admitted.

“Well, I’ll help,” Jamie offered, starting to take the paper. Then he stopped and looked up at Sherlock with uncertainty. “Is that alright?”

“Of course,” Sherlock assured him, pushing the piece of paper towards him. “I would appreciate it.”

“I shouldn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Jamie went on, drawing the bold outline of a ship. “Sometimes Johnny gets mad when I try to do something for him, because he already _knew_ how to do it, he was just thinking for a bit first.” He drew a mast and a sail.

“People _do_ get mad when others are quicker than they are, I don’t know why,” Sherlock agreed.

But Jamie wasn’t necessarily looking for agreement. “Oh, they don’t want to feel dumb,” he told Sherlock wisely. “People don’t like to feel dumb and it’s not nice to make them, you know. Johnny is very smart about some things and he tries not to make me feel dumb when I don’t know.”

Sherlock smiled a little. “You’re very close to your brother, aren’t you? Best friends?”

“Oh yes,” Jamie agreed. He drew some cannons on the ship. “We’re best friends in the whole world! We do everything together. Even if he wants to read I sit by him and draw or something.” He looked down at the drawing in satisfaction. “There, that’s nice,” he declared, giving it back to Sherlock. “You can draw the people on it now.”

Sherlock grimaced at this idea, but Jamie encouraged him. “Okay, hmm, a _person_ …” He picked up the black crayon and drew a stick figure on the deck of the ship. “There.”

He got the impression Jamie was underwhelmed, but the boy continued to show patience. “Is that the captain, then? You ought to give him a hat, so everyone knows he’s the captain.”

The first hat that came to Sherlock’s mind was a deerstalker, but he wasn’t sure how to draw that on a stick figure with a tiny head. The thing he ended up drawing had a narrow horizontal brim and a tall, rectangular top.

Jamie pondered this. “Is your pirate captain Abraham Lincoln?” he asked carefully.

“What?” Sherlock responded with a frown.

“No, I’m sure he’d make a lovely pirate captain,” Jamie assured him, “because he was very tall. Add some more people,” he suggested.

Sherlock drew a stick figure in blue, then one in green. He was not certain how many stick figures were required to run a pirate ship, but Jamie was still watching him, so he added another one in orange. Jamie relaxed a bit. “Enough crew, you think?” Sherlock surmised.

Jamie nodded. “Now we have to give them names,” he proclaimed.

“Names?” Sherlock repeated in consternation. “This is a rather complicated endeavor.”

“Yes,” Jamie agreed seriously. “What’s your pirate captain’s name? Something scary, like Blackbeard or Firesword, only you can’t use those.”

“Captain Firesword?” Sherlock repeated dubiously.

“You ought to think up your own,” Jamie insisted, delicately.

Sherlock was not good with names. The last time he’d had to come up with a name for someone was—okay, maybe Saucy shouldn’t count. Well, Indigo, then—his eyes were such a deep blue, the word had just popped into Sherlock’s mind. “What about Indigo?” he proposed. “Can Indigo be the pirate captain? Perhaps that’s not very scary,” he admitted.

“Well, he can be a _nice_ pirate captain,” Jamie decided. “Shall I write it down for you?”

“Alright,” Sherlock allowed, and Jamie took the paper and carefully printed the name _Indigo_ near the pirate captain. “Very good, you spelled it correctly.”

Jamie was pleased by the praise. “What shall we name the others?”

“You decide.”

Jamie worked with great concentration for a few moments, then unveiled the results. Sherlock wasn’t sure how to interpret the fact that the three crew members had been named UnderHim, Sleepy, and Fury. “We ought to have some more, for Uncle Saucy and Uncle Charlie,” Jamie decided, squeezing some more figures onto the boat. “Oh, and _then_ , here’s a little boat with me and Johnny, and we’re coming to join the pirate ship!” He looked up at Sherlock. “Oh, you’re not here,” he realized regretfully.

“That’s alright—“

But Jamie would not leave anyone out, even though there didn’t seem to be any more room on the ship. In a burst of inspiration he drew a red and yellow blob perched on the crossbar of the mast. “How is your name spelled?” he asked, and Sherlock spelled it for him.

“Um, what is that?” Sherlock finally had to ask.

“That’s the parrot,” Jamie declared. “Every pirate ship needs a parrot.”

“I see.” Sherlock was not sure how he should feel about being assigned the role of parrot. “What do the parrots do? Are they like guard dogs?” he guessed.

“Well, they talk,” Jamie explained. And then stopped, suggesting that was it for parrot duties.

“Oh.”

Jamie sensed disappointment in his tone. “Everyone loves the parrots,” he claimed. “They’re funny!”

“Oh, alright,” Sherlock agreed, trying to sound more enthusiastic. “Go parrots. What are you drawing now?”

“I’m putting sharks in the water around us,” he described, surrounding the smaller boat with sinister peaks, “and then the pirates will rescue us and take us on board their ship!”

“Jolly good of them,” Sherlock commented. “That’s what pirates do, is it? I thought they stole things.”

“Well, Indigo is a _nice_ pirate captain, so he rescues people,” Jamie decided. “He’ll rescue me and Johnny from the sharks.”

“That _is_ nice,” Sherlock judged, looking over the composition as a whole. “Quite a lot of details packed in.”

“Yes, I’ll have to explain it all to Johnny,” Jamie decided.

“Does he, er, know who these people are?” Sherlock asked carefully. “Fury and Charlie and so forth?”

“Oh yes, they’re our friends,” Jamie declared promptly. Then he frowned. “Well, it’s a bit confusing…”

“Yes, I agree,” said Sherlock dryly. “Do they play _pirates_ with you and Johnny? Is that how you know them?” Indigo’s head could be a gigantic playground for alters and memories for all he knew.

“I don’t—I’m not sure,” Jamie admitted, sounding troubled by this, and Sherlock worried he’d pushed too much.

“Well, it’s not important,” he claimed breezily. “Shall we draw something else? Would you like to play a game?” Sherlock didn’t _know_ any games, but he was feeling a bit desperate now.

Jamie’s face still had a frown, though. “They rescue us,” he murmured, then repeated more loudly, “They rescue us.” He gave Sherlock an earnest look, as if this was terribly important to understand.

“Yes, they protect you,” he rephrased. He waited, holding his breath, as Jamie started to aimlessly doodle on a new piece of paper.

“Sometimes… sometimes he gets very angry,” Jamie said in a small voice. “Sometimes he yells, and… hits.” Jamie’s eyes flickered up to Sherlock quickly, then back down. “And sometimes he throws Johnny’s books and my crayons away, and says they’re stupid.”

“Your father?” Sherlock asked, afraid to move.

Jamie nodded. He dropped the crayon and curled up in the chair. “And sometimes at night, he takes us to the closet and he—he touches—“ He hiccupped a little and Sherlock realized tears were spilling over his eyes.

Immediately he rushed forward to embrace him. “It’s okay, Jamie, you don’t have to think about it anymore,” he asserted, stroking his short hair. “That’s all over now, you’re safe here. You’re safe with me, I won’t let anything happen to you.” He held the alter close against his shoulder, feeling his shaky breaths.

Sherlock was not one to wish for fanciful things like a time machine, but if he had one he would go back to that farm and take two little boys away from their misery. Well, and the girl, too, he supposed. “Shh, it’s alright, calm down,” he told Jamie, who was still sniffling. “Everyone here is going to keep you safe. And, um, make sure that you and Johnny have lots of books and crayons.”

“Really?” Jamie asked, leaning back with a watery smile that made Sherlock feel like he couldn’t breathe properly.

“Absolutely,” Sherlock insisted. “Anything you want.” In that instant he meant it—nothing could be too much, for a boy who’d had everything taken away.

“Oh, well…” Jamie snuffled and wiped his eyes with his sleeves, which didn’t even bother Sherlock quite as fast as it usually did. “I should like to have a dog,” he suggested thoughtfully. “D’you think we could have a dog?”

Panic of a different kind gripped Sherlock. “Well—um—uh—a dog? A whole dog?”

Jamie tipped his head to the side suddenly. “Oh, Uncle UnderHim says it’s time for me to go now,” he announced, still sniffling a bit. “I’m going to go play _pirates_ with Johnny!” He hugged Sherlock unexpectedly. “Thanks for drawing with me, Uncle Sherlock.”

“You’re welcome,” Sherlock stuttered. “It was nice to meet you.”

Jamie let him go and sat back up in the chair, and then his posture changed and Hamish was back. Sherlock collapsed across the table, worn out from the intensity of what he’d experienced. “Holy s—t,” he groaned.

Hamish, meanwhile, got up and blew his nose on a tissue. “Did you promise Jamie a _dog_?” he asked, torn between amusement and disgust. “Honestly, I didn’t think you’d be such a soft touch.”

“It just—caught me by surprise, and I didn’t— _Did_ I promise him a dog?” Sherlock asked, hoping it wasn’t true. “I thought I left it ambiguous.”

Hamish gave him a look that suggested he had not. “We’ll see how long he keeps talking about it,” he allowed, sitting back down at the table. “Maybe he’ll get distracted by something else.” He studied the pictures Jamie had drawn. “Perhaps you can consult with ‘Captain Indigo’ later,” he added dryly.

“I’m not good with children,” Sherlock asserted.

“You did fine,” Hamish claimed matter-of-factly. He indicated the drawings. “I would like to keep these.”

It took Sherlock a moment to realize he was asking permission. “Oh, of course.”

“We have to keep Jamie very safe, you see,” Hamish went on, a faraway look in his eyes. “He doesn’t come out much—it’s rarely a safe place for him, and he usually wouldn’t have anyone appropriate to interact with anyway. But he’s happy, because all day long he plays with his brother, and he almost never thinks of anything bad. It’s like the fields of Elysium.”

Sherlock blinked. “Is that a Biblical reference?” he guessed.

Hamish stared at him. “Greek mythology. Not relevant to your life?” he surmised dryly.

“No. Deleted.”

“Pity. I find the metaphorical imagery aids communication.”

Sherlock made a note to think that over later. “I didn’t mean to upset him,” he added quickly. “There at the end.” He felt slightly guilty for not diverting Jamie, even if he _had_ gotten a clearer picture of what happened on that farm.

“He’ll be alright,” Hamish promised. “He only thinks about it when he’s out, which as I said isn’t much. Though,” he added hesitantly, “if you were amenable to it, he could be out more.”

“Certainly,” Sherlock answered immediately, then qualified, “Well, Indigo—“

Hamish nodded his understanding. “Yes, it might be difficult to explain to Indigo, I don’t envy you that,” he admitted. “But if Jamie could interact with you and Mrs. Hudson at Baker Street, maybe have some toys and books—“

“Yes, of course.”

“—I think that could be very good for him,” Hamish concluded. “He hasn’t had much in the way of good adult role models.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Hudson is a very capable role model,” Sherlock allowed, “if somewhat overzealous in a few habits, like cleaning.”

Hamish smirked at his omission of himself. “Relax, Sherlock,” he advised. “I already told you, you’ve done well by the others just by being yourself. You’ll do fine with Jamie, too. It’s not like having a _real_ child, after all. You can turn this one off.”

“That’s a horrible way to put it,” Sherlock decided. “Isn’t it? I feel like I would be chastised for saying it.”

“Well, don’t say it to anyone else,” Hamish suggested sagely. “Can we move to the couch?” he went on, stretching out his legs. “I hate it when Jamie curls up like that, makes my knees stiff.”

They relocated to the couch, Hamish propping his feet up on an ottoman before the fire. “I think Indigo would like it here,” Sherlock commented idly, staring into the flames. “He would find it very cozy, I think. He likes having a fire at home.”

“He’d like it until he realized where we are,” Hamish reminded him darkly, and Sherlock felt duly admonished for losing focus on their mission here. “What do you want to know about next?”

Sherlock cast his mind back to their visit to the farm, which seemed like a very long time ago now. “What happened to the sister?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Hamish admitted, which proved correct Sherlock’s earlier suspicion—that he’d made up the bit about her being a solicitor in Edinburgh. “They were split up for foster care, and we never saw her again.”

Sherlock frowned. “Even when he became an adult? He didn’t try to find her?” That didn’t seem very much like Indigo, who tended to be quite loyal.

“He tried, but he didn’t get very far,” Hamish elaborated. “Then there was med school and the Army… He had doubts about it, and I encouraged those,” he said frankly. “He was worried that she’d made her own life, maybe been able to forget the past, and he would bring it all back for her if she saw him. And _I_ was worried she’d turn out badly—statistically likely, really—and when he saw that he’d just feel guilty.”

Sherlock nodded. That seemed like the sort of illogical, overly-complex response Indigo would have to such a situation. “Does he want to try and find her now?” he asked.

Hamish grimaced. “If it were ever brought up, he’d probably say yes,” he confessed. “But now it’s awkward because he’s a slave.”

“Oh right.” Slaves had the lowest social status, of course; it would be natural for someone to be ashamed that their close relative had become a slave, as that was usually the last resort of debtors, non-violent recidivists, and the occasional court-martialed soldier. “Well, I’m sure she could be found, though,” he added optimistically. He didn’t mention asking for Mycroft’s assistance.

Prudently Hamish didn’t either. “We’ll see,” he shrugged. “I’m sure this trip will stir up memories for him, who knows what he’ll decide to do about them.” He sounded rather pessimistic himself, but then again his viewpoint tended to be bleak, Sherlock was realizing. “What else?”

“Jamie mentioned the closet,” Sherlock said, meeting Hamish’s gaze. The alter just waited to see if he wanted to know more details and frankly, Sherlock didn’t. “You said John and his sister went into foster care,” he remarked after a moment. “Where are their parents now?”

Unexpectedly Hamish’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Why do you want to know?”

Sherlock immediately frowned in response. “You said you would tell me what happened,” he reminded Hamish sharply. “You can’t _not_ tell me what happened to—“

Hamish put his hand on Sherlock’s arm, heavy and warm. “Relax, Sherlock,” he suggested easily. “I’ll tell you, I’m just curious why you want to know. I hope you don’t want to meet them.”

“If they’re in prison… for life…” Sherlock decided slowly, “then no, I don’t want to meet them. But if you tell me they’re living comfortably in Essex or something,” he went on, his temper rising, “then I’m going to hunt them down and ruin them.”

This also made Hamish smile. “You told Charlie you’d ruin Simmerson if he was still alive,” he pointed out. “That impressed him.”

“It’s true,” Sherlock asserted flatly, not sure why anyone would think it wasn’t. “I don’t like people who hurt my friends.” And Sherlock found it relatively easy to deduce the secrets other people tried to hide—people like _this_ , there would be other things they’d done, things that didn’t involve Indigo at all, so he wouldn’t have to think about them or be dragged into it. And if somehow there _wasn’t_ , well, Sherlock was prepared to be creative.

Hamish’s hand still rested on his arm, gently stroking the tense muscles through the fabric of his shirt and jacket. “Well, not to worry,” he finally said, in the slightly flippant tone Sherlock had come to associate with his dark sense of humor. “The mother couldn’t take it anymore one day and shot the father, then herself. In the parlor, that’s where that comes in.”

“Oh,” Sherlock replied, not sure whether he was disappointed or not. “So they’re both dead.”

“Unmistakably.”

“How old was Indigo?”

“John was fifteen and Harriet was ten,” Hamish recalled. “Then they went into foster care. John made very good grades despite everything, got a scholarship to uni, worked his way through med school, joined the Army… A very respectable life,” he smirked grimly.

Something was not quite right, though. There was a gap in the chain in Sherlock’s mind and he tried to find it as it niggled at him, like an itch. “When did Fury first appear?” he finally asked.

Hamish smiled, very slowly. “He told you that already.”

“He said Indigo was a teenager, not yet in uni,” Sherlock remembered, sharpening his gaze on Hamish’s expression. “I want to know more specifically,” he prompted, when Hamish said nothing. A suspicion grew in his mind, fueled by Hamish’s rueful smirk. The alter did what he had to do to protect Indigo, and he knew others wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t agree that what he did was necessary; but he didn’t care. He had a single goal and few scruples about reaching it.

Sherlock did not know why Hamish thought he wouldn’t understand. Maybe he just didn’t know Sherlock well enough yet.

“Fury said he appeared when Indigo was strong enough,” Sherlock went on into the silence. “And Fury kills people.”

“Oh, he doesn’t _always_ kill people,” Hamish dismissed. “Sometimes it’s just a fight. Sometimes he’s even protecting other people, people Indigo wished he was strong enough to protect himself.”

“I don’t fundamentally disagree with Fury’s purpose,” Sherlock assured him. “I just want to know when he first appeared.”

“Fifteen.”

“Is that a coincidence, with his parents’ deaths?” Sherlock probed.

Hamish chuckled a bit. “What do _you_ think, Sherlock?” The look in his eyes was cold.

“How’s Indigo’s alibi?” Sherlock asked instead, matter-of-factly.

“Oh, it’s a pretty clear case,” Hamish claimed. “Nothing at the crime scene to make anyone suspect something beyond the obvious. No one like _you_ around to foul things up,” he added pointedly. “According to the coroner they died while John and Harriet were safely in school.”

“That evidence can be faked,” Sherlock noted, though he didn’t know why he bothered. He got the sense Hamish had given him all the details he was prepared to give, and Sherlock would have to decide if he could live with that.

“By _you_ , maybe,” Hamish shot back. “By Moriarty, maybe. By a fifteen-year-old boy who’d never so much as read a murder mystery? Please. You know, we didn’t even have the Internet back then.”

“Yes, that was a ghastly time,” Sherlock agreed casually. “Once I wanted to figure out how I could dispose of a body, and I had to read quite a few books and encyclopedia articles and then synthesize that information, and make quite a few of my own deductions as well, before I managed it.” He paused. “I had some frozen chickens,” he added, in case there was any doubt.

“And those chickens didn’t even do anything to you,” Hamish deadpanned.

A laugh burbled out of Sherlock at this, and for once no one told him he was being inappropriate. “Why isn’t Indigo as smart as you?” he asked, without thinking it through.

Hamish’s face immediately clouded over. “Indigo is _very_ smart,” he said coolly.

Sherlock was not intimidated, though maybe he should have been. “He’s no genius, though,” he persisted. “Like you said, never even read a murder mystery.”

Hamish relaxed slightly at the clarification—they were talking about _abnormal_ intelligence here. “Why are _you_ so smart?” he tossed back curiously.

“Genetics, more books than friends, conscious training, deletion of unnecessary information—“ That was all Sherlock could think of at the moment, and Hamish shrugged as if his answer was the same. Sherlock was skeptical, though. “It can’t be _that_ simple,” he scoffed. “More people would be geniuses if that’s all there was to it.”

At this Hamish laughed. “’All’?” he repeated with amusement. “Just a horrible childhood with an intense focus on knowledge as a means of survival, to the exclusion of even some basic moral principles and normal human interactions, coupled with a bit of good luck from having a brainy ancestor?”

“Which one of us are you talking about?” Sherlock asked in confusion, and Hamish laughed again. There was something very attractive about his laugh, even though it was different from Indigo’s. “Stop,” Sherlock insisted, as he tried to keep from chuckling himself. The release of tension was satisfying after the day he’d had. “I’ve never killed anyone, alright?”

Any sane person would be offended by this implication, but Sherlock was getting the definite sense that 1) Hamish was not what you might technically call sane; and 2) the implication was not what you might technically call wrong.

“You’ve never _had_ to,” Hamish suggested easily, still grinning. “I mean really, without getting caught. Despite what some people might think.”

Sherlock’s mind flashed to Donovan and Anderson, and he grimaced. Then he looked up and saw Hamish watching him curiously, and he tried to stay focused. “But Indigo doesn’t know these things?” he checked, just to be sure. “These things you’ve done.”

“No, of course not,” Hamish assured him. At some point he had scooted a little closer to Sherlock, or maybe Sherlock had scooted closer to _him_ , and now his arm rested on the back of the couch behind Sherlock’s shoulders. “And I’d appreciate it if you _didn’t_ tell him,” he went on, “but I imagine it’s going to come out sooner or later.”

“I’m not _that_ unreliable,” Sherlock protested.

He felt Hamish’s arm brushing against his shoulders and leaned into it. “You don’t like keeping secrets from him, though,” Hamish noted, as if this was an amusing little quirk of Sherlock’s. “And _he_ doesn’t like secrets to be kept from him, either, so you’re rather in an awkward position now. Sorry.” The apology was not very sincere.

Sherlock had to turn more on the couch to face Hamish. “Should I be worried about your homicidal tendencies?” he asked, trying to be serious. It was a serious question, after all.

Of course Hamish smirked in response. “I’m not homicidal, I’m _protective_ ,” he corrected.

Sherlock put his hand on Hamish’s shoulder to prevent him from leaning closer. “Hamish,” he said pointedly, and the other man sighed.

“We agree, you’re safe,” Hamish told him, which Sherlock had heard before and was beginning to question the meaning of.

“ _I’m_ safe from harm, or Indigo is safe from harm by _me_?” he questioned.

“I protect Indigo,” Hamish began, the repetition for the emphasis Sherlock had obviously missed before. “ _You_ don’t harm Indigo, and he rather likes you. So it’s in his best interests to keep you safe, within the limits of our own self-preservation.”

Sherlock was not quite convinced yet, though. “I’m not very _nice_ ,” he warned. “I can be irritating, insensitive—“

“You’d have to go a lot farther than that to be on my list, Sherlock,” Hamish tried to assured him. His hand crept up Sherlock’s shoulder to caress the skin of his collarbone. “Don’t be nervous—“

“I’m not nervous.”

“—no one’s going to kill you in the night if you yell at him or leave a mess in the kitchen,” Hamish promised. “I only handle severe mistreatment.”

“I hit him once,” Sherlock remember guiltily, and Hamish grinned like a shark, just inches away.

“Yes, that was a bit dodgy,” he agreed. “But we considered it carefully. Your apology was sincere and your reason, though poor, was genuine.”

“I really thought he’d duck,” Sherlock reiterated, and Hamish nodded in apparent understanding. “I won’t do it again.”

“We know you won’t.” His tone was a mix of chilling and comforting that intrigued Sherlock.

“So I shouldn’t worry about having you in my flat?” he breathed.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘having,’” Hamish replied, and closed the distance between them.

**

“Okay, let me check the camera angle.” Sherlock tapped on his laptop, making sure the video recorder was aimed at the right spot on the couch.

“Are you sure this is necessary?” Hamish asked dubiously.

“It was _your_ idea!”

“No, the _book_ was my idea.” He held up the small blue notebook.

“No, the book was _my_ idea,” Sherlock protested indignantly. “Stay on the center cushion or you’re out of focus. I had the idea several days ago when—“

Hamish sighed loudly. “Are we doing this now?” he asked pointedly.

“Yes. Do it.”

Hamish looked up at the camera positioned on the mantel of the fireplace at 221B Baker Street. “Hello,” he began soberly. “I’m Hamish, also known as UnderHim. You don’t remember me, but we’ve been together for a long time.” He paused and his eyes darted over to Sherlock. “I’m just going to write this in the book,” he noted. “Do I have to say it as well?”

“Well, write something else,” Sherlock advised.

“So you’re just going to film me writing?”

“Why are you being difficult?” Sherlock wanted to know, and Hamish rolled his eyes. “We talked about this already. He’s going to think you’re _difficult_.”

“Well given what he _knows_ about you, he’ll probably understand,” Hamish muttered, leaning over the notebook he held open on his lap.

“What?”

“I’m _writing_.” Hamish finished his message. “Fine. Now who?”

“Chronological order, so Sleepy,” Sherlock dictated from the side.

“He doesn’t like to come out during the day.” Sherlock gave him a long-suffering look, which sadly was not caught by the camera. “Can you close the curtains at least?”

Sherlock rose to do so. “Are we trying to fool him?” That didn’t seem like a good idea.

“No, he’s just not used to sunlight. Ready?”

“Hang on, let me see if it’s too dark now,” Sherlock said, checking the video feed again. Then he hopped back up to turn on some lights. When he looked back at the couch, SleepingHim was kneeling on the floor in front of the coffee table, scowling at him.

“Oh, poor Sleepy,” Sherlock teased with fake sincerity, trying to pat his head as he went by.

SleepingHim ducked away. “Don’t touch,” he grumped. “I protect at _night_ , at night in the _dark_ —“

“Quit complaining and write your note to Indigo,” Sherlock advised, adjusting the camera’s focus slightly. “You’ve done it before, remember your—“

“Don’t talk,” Sleepy ordered grouchily. Sherlock waited, silent but impatient, as Sleepy labored over the notebook. “I am done,” he proclaimed.

“Okay, thank you,” Sherlock told him. “You can go back to bed now. Send me Jamie.”

“I am not in charge—“

“I said you could go,” Sherlock reminded him. “Why are you all being so contrary today? This was Hamish’s idea.”

Sleepy huffed and left, and Jamie appeared in his place, all smiles and excitement. “Hello, Uncle Sherlock!” He popped up and started to run for him.

Sherlock caught him and steered him back to the couch, where he received his hug. “Hello, Jamie. You have to stay here, remember, so you can be on camera.” He pointed to it. “Say hello to Indigo.”

Jamie waved cheerfully at the camera. “Hello, Indigo. That’s a pretty name.”

Sherlock smirked and stepped back out of camera range. “Okay, so you’re going to write your note to Indigo, remember?”

Jamie knelt down at the coffee table, much as Sleepy had, and contemplated the notebook. “Could I draw a picture instead?” he asked.

“Well, if you want.”

“Do you have crayons?”

“Just use the pen.”

Jamie screwed his face up as he regarded the plain black pen. “It’s boring! Don’t you have crayons?”

Mustering his patience Sherlock went back over to sit on the couch by him, and Jamie leaned against him affectionately. “This is just a quick note to say hello to Indigo,” he reminded the boy. “You can make drawings for him later. So what do you want to say to him now?”

Jamie turned back to the notebook. “Alright. ‘Dear Indigo,’” he began. “’My name is Jamie.’” He paused and looked over at Sherlock, who had escaped off-camera again. “What else should I say?”

“Tell him about your brother,” Sherlock suggested. “What did you do today?”

“Today we played Egyptian mummies!” Jamie relayed excitedly. “We wrapped each other up in sheets and took turns being the cursed mummy who chases the archaeologist around.”

“Well that sounds lovely,” Sherlock deadpanned. “Write that down.”

Jamie tried. “How do you spell Egyptian?” he wanted to know.

“Do your best,” Sherlock merely advised.

“How about archaeologist?”

“I could guess, but I don’t even know what that is,” Sherlock admitted.

Jamie goggled at him. “You don’t know what an archaeologist is?”

“Irrelevant information,” Sherlock claimed. “Deleted. Are you done?”

Jamie put the finishing touches on his note. “Do I have to go now?” he asked with a frown.

“You can come back later,” Sherlock promised. “We’ll get out the crayons then. And I got you some books.”

“Okay!” Jamie agreed excitedly. “Bye, Uncle Sherlock!”

Sherlock didn’t have to ask for Fury next; the alter appeared in turn and stood up tensely.

“Sit down, you’re out of focus,” Sherlock instructed in annoyance. This had all been _explained_ to them. Fury did not sit, however. “Honestly,” Sherlock huffed. “ _What?_ ”

“This is not what I do,” Fury snarled.

“It is today.” Fury growled. “Don’t give me that. Sit down.”

Finally Fury sat. “This is stupid,” he rasped out.

“Just say something to Indigo.” Fury made a rude gesture at the camera. “Fury! Fine, just write something in the notebook. Try not to damage it,” Sherlock added with some sarcasm. Fury just sat on the couch angrily. “We’re going to wait here all day until you cooperate,” Sherlock threatened.

“This is not what I do,” Fury repeated, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Sherlock told him disdainfully. “Jamie was better behaved than you and he’s _ten_. Show some maturity and talk to Indigo.”

Finally Fury looked right into the camera. “I am Fury,” he announced, chillingly. “I kill to protect you. I also kill annoying people.” His eyes slid sideways to Sherlock.

“Oh stop,” Sherlock ordered without concern. “He’s just joking, he’s not going to kill me,” he added, for Indigo’s benefit. “Now write something.”

Fury fairly howled in frustration and Sherlock quickly texted Mrs. Hudson that everything was okay, no need to come up. “I do not _write_!” he protested, as if this was really beyond endurance.

“Don’t you know how?” Sherlock asked with some curiosity, not having considered this possibility before. “Do you know your letters, at least?”

Fury yowled as if this was extremely condescending and snatched up the notebook, scribbling away. Sherlock wondered if he was really writing anything or just making marks. Then he tossed the notebook aside.

“Thank you—“ He vanished before Sherlock could finish speaking.

“No, thank _you_ ,” Saucy purred, stretching provocatively on the couch. “That was _so_ much fun earlier, especially when you did that thing with your tongue where you—“

Sherlock cleared his throat. “Let’s keep this PG, okay, Saucy?” he suggested. “What do you want to say to Indigo?”

“Oh, that he’s so lucky to have a tall, handsome bloke like you to shag!” Saucy exclaimed dreamily. “Who’s so _nice_ and likes kissing and cuddling, too!”

Sherlock tried not to smirk too much, imagining Indigo’s face as he watched this. Even just sitting on the couch Saucy’s body language was coquettish—legs crossed, hips twitching, eyes rather obviously ogling Sherlock but pretending they weren’t. It was a complete one-eighty from how Indigo ever behaved.

“Okay, are you going to write him a note?” Sherlock prompted, since Saucy seemed content to sit there eyeballing him. The alter readily picked up the notebook and pen, sucking on the end of the latter idly.

“Indigo is such a lovely, romantic name,” he sighed as he wrote. “Did you give it to him?”

“Yes, for his eyes.”

Saucy made a noise of delight. “That’s _so_ sweet,” he cooed. “I’m going to tell him how lovely and sweet you are, but just a bit naughty, too,” he giggled, drawing his knees up to write against them.

“Don’t be too explicit, Jamie might read that,” Sherlock warned.

Clearly Saucy hadn’t thought of this and his face fell. He started to scribble some things out. “But it’s fun to write naughty notes sometimes,” he protested.

“Well, write them on a separate piece of paper,” Sherlock suggested. “Anyway, you’d be writing them to _me_ , not Indigo, wouldn’t you?”

“I might have _suggestions_ for him,” Saucy replied flirtatiously. “You want to know what I’d suggest to him right now?”

“What?” Sherlock asked, intrigued, then caught himself. “No, hang on, we’re doing this video for Indigo, so just—“

“I think we should do an _instructional_ video for him sometime,” Saucy said, far too innocently.

Sherlock barely suppressed a grin. “Are you done writing? Charlie’s next, you know.”

Saucy made a face at the mention of his name. “Charlie’s _not_ very nice,” he grumbled, writing more.

“Don’t worry about Charlie,” Sherlock advised. “Just write to Indigo.” He waited. “Are you done yet?”

“No.”

He waited longer. “Saucy, this needn’t be your life story,” Sherlock pointed out impatiently.

“He does get demanding, doesn’t he?” Saucy said to the camera in a conspiratorial way. “I think it’s cute. Especially when his voice gets that little sound in it—“

“Saucy.”

“—like that,” he giggled. “Alright, fine, I’m done,” he added, closing the notebook. “How about a goodbye kiss?”

It was tempting. But Sherlock knew where goodbye kisses led. “Come back later,” he advised. “Do you want to be before or after Jamie?”

“After,” Saucy said quickly, which did seem more prudent.

“Alright.”

“Okay, goodbye!” Saucy agreed, and blew him a kiss.

Then Charlie appeared, twitching his limbs like he was still trying to shake Saucy off. “Hi, Charlie,” Sherlock prompted.

“Hi,” Charlie replied, managing to sound sarcastic even with one syllable. He picked up the notebook and began flipping through it. “This is the big idea for better communication, hmm?” He sounded dubious.

“Yes. Introduce yourself to Indigo. There’s the camera.”

Charlie gave him a look. “I’m perfectly capable of recognizing a camera, thanks,” he said disdainfully. “I’m Bonnie Prince Charlie, and you’ve got a lot of morons here,” he told the camera, waving the notebook.

“Charlie.”

“This kid can’t even spell,” he complained, presumably of Jamie’s entry. “What is wrong with him?”

“Gee, I wonder,” Sherlock deadpanned, and Charlie let out his creepy, hooting laugh. “Tell Indigo something about you.”

Charlie snorted. “Like what? The less he knows about me, the better,” he claimed, slightly bitter. “Everyone _else_ can boast about how they protected him—“ He slapped an entry that presumably did so.

“You can, too,” Sherlock assured him. “You protected him.”

Charlie did not acknowledge this. “J---s, Saucy wrote some kind of cheesy romance novel,” he mocked.

“Maybe Saucy likes to write, as a hobby,” Sherlock mused. “He could do that.”

“Saucy’s hobbies are strictly horizontal,” Charlie claimed meanly. “G-d, I didn’t even know Fury _could_ write,” he went on, staring at another page. “Have you read these? It’s like a lunatic superhero team.”

“Just write your own note,” Sherlock pushed, trying to be patient. “Don’t critique the others.”

“I’m an artist,” Charlie claimed, finally putting pen to paper. “Attention to detail, nuance, the subtle interaction of cause and effect…” He appeared to be drawing rather than writing.

“Nothing explicit,” Sherlock repeated. “Jamie might see it.”

Charlie gave him a look as if to say he knew that already. Sherlock let him draw undisturbed, pleased to find out about a (presumably) non-violent hobby of Charlie’s. He was prepared to support the alters in their individual interests, if they had any. Hamish was dubious of that idea, but Sherlock decided that was because Hamish _had_ no individual interests himself; his focus on Indigo’s well-being was complete, and any knowledge he gained was for that end alone. The newest alters, Saucy and Charlie, seemed more sophisticated than the older ones, more complex in their outlook—perhaps, less necessary to Indigo’s survival now, they could afford to branch out. And Jamie, of course, was a special case.

Charlie snapped the book shut, startling Sherlock back into the moment. “Done,” he announced.

“Thank you. I got you a present.” At this Charlie looked genuinely surprised, which he quickly tried to recover from as he dug into the bag Sherlock indicated.

“ _Human Centipede_ ,” Charlie saw with delight, pulling out the DVD.

“I’m not going to watch it with you,” Sherlock warned. “But I thought you might like it.”

Charlie read the description on the back of the case and laughed at several points, which only confirmed Sherlock’s desire to never see it himself. “Well, thanks,” he finally said.

“You can keep it on your shelf,” Sherlock indicated of the bookcase he’d managed to clear off. Each of the alters had their own shelf, with Jamie’s at the bottom because he didn’t mind sitting on the floor, and Fury’s at the top, because it seemed most likely to remain empty.

“Well, alright.” He sounded in a slightly better humor now. “That all, then?”

“For the moment,” Sherlock agreed, and Charlie disappeared.

Hamish took his place, leaning confidently against the couch cushions. “Satisfactory?” he asked.

“Several of them were grouchy,” Sherlock complained, getting up to turn off the video.

Hamish was unconcerned about this. “This isn’t their usual activity,” he shrugged. “They’ll adjust.” He looked through the notebook, smirking at some things and frowning at others.

“Nothing upsetting?” Sherlock checked, putting Charlie’s DVD away on his shelf. He didn’t need _that_ sitting around if Jamie was going to come back soon.

“Well, the entire concept, potentially,” Hamish pointed out dryly. He closed the notebook and tucked it into his pocket, though, so Sherlock decided it couldn’t have been that bad.

“Thank you for your help,” Sherlock told him.

“You probably won’t see me much after this,” Hamish warned, seemingly speaking of a larger timescale than Sherlock was. “Unless you’re screwing something up, of course.”

“You’re leaving?” Sherlock asked with a frown.

“Indigo will be back tomorrow morning,” Hamish went on. “Good luck explaining all this. You can play with the others until then, they’ll come when you call.”

His tone was slightly dismissive, but Sherlock detected an underlying reluctance in it and he sat down beside Hamish on the couch. “You don’t _have_ to go just yet,” he suggested.

Hamish shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not usually out this much,” he reminded Sherlock. “It’s… odd. For me. I prefer to be behind the scenes.”

“Oh.” Sherlock realized he was disappointed by this. Although he was looking forward to having Indigo back in the morning, he’d found he related rather well to Hamish. Which, considering what Hamish had done over the years, ought to have been a bit scary; but Sherlock was no angel himself and had few qualms about Hamish’s actions. “Well, thank you for taking me to Braxtonwood and explaining things,” he finally said.

“You’re welcome,” Hamish replied formally. “I’m trusting you with that information, don’t mess it up.”

“Right.” No pressure. Sherlock was not really sure how he _could_ mess this up, or avoid it—what was the criteria for that?

“I’m not going away forever,” Hamish pointed out in the awkward silence. “I’m always in the background, watching and listening.”

“That’s not creepy.”

Hamish rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to get over that.”

“I probably will,” Sherlock decided realistically. That sort of thing really didn’t bother him too much.

“And I can leave you notes, or send someone with a message,” Hamish went on. “Probably Charlie, he’s actually the most reliable in that regard.”

“Does he like drawing? Is he good at it?” Sherlock queried. “He didn’t draw something weird, did he?” He glanced significantly at the notebook in Hamish’s pocket, being rather curious about the contents, but the alter didn’t move to show it to him.

“Yes, yes, and it’s fine,” Hamish answered briskly in turn.

There was an uncomfortable pause. “Well, I’ll leave then,” Hamish decided. “You want Jamie next? How about an hour, you can start watching cartoons if you aren’t sure what to do with him.” Sherlock nodded, glad Hamish had suggested that—he understood Jamie’s importance but still felt at a disadvantage dealing with a child. “Alright.” Before Sherlock could say anything else—he wasn’t sure what he would’ve said, anyway—Hamish vanished and Jamie took his place, with a big grin and a hug and boundless enthusiasm.

**

Indigo woke up at home—Baker Street, in Sherlock’s bed, with Sherlock asleep next to him. He felt wonderful, truly rested for the first time in a long time, and so intensely relieved to be here and not… anywhere else. Anywhere.

He rolled out of bed, feeling too good to just lie there, and pulled on his robe and slippers, hoping there was some food in the house. He could make a big breakfast and tempt Sherlock into eating some of it, he planned as he put the kettle on. Then he went downstairs to get the paper.

When he came back up Sherlock was awake and sitting at the kitchen table watching him, which was surprising, but Indigo was already dealing with a surprise. “Sherlock,” he said slowly, turning the newspaper around to show him, “this is Wednesday’s paper.”

“Mmm,” replied Sherlock noncommittally.

“It’s only Monday,” Indigo added, eyes skittering over the paper as though he might’ve missed something.

The kettle whistled. “How about some tea?” Sherlock suggested, a little too brightly.

Indigo dropped the paper on the table, hoping Sherlock had enough brainpower to solve this mystery for him, even though it was early. Any second he was going to point out that there was a misprint on the front page, or that this was the weekly circular dated ahead, or _last_ Wednesday’s paper, or something like that. Any second. Except he didn’t, and when Indigo brought the tea over, he hadn’t even touched the newspaper.

“You alright?” Indigo asked. “It’s early, you could go back to bed—“

Sherlock sipped his tea. “How are _you_ feeling?” he asked instead.

“Fine,” Indigo answered. The question was unexpected. “Great, actually. I’m really glad to be h-here,” he added, substituting ‘here’ for ‘home’ at the last minute. It felt a bit silly, but Sherlock was giving him an odd look. “Are you still thinking about the alters?” Indigo guessed, and Sherlock looked interested. “I’m sure that was all very exciting for you,” he went on flatly, “but I’m glad to see the back of them.” So to speak. He stood to open the fridge. “I think I’ll have an omelet.”

“Have a granola bar,” Sherlock suggested instead, “so I can talk to you without you being hungry.”

Slowly Indigo closed the fridge door and turned around, but Sherlock was playing with his teacup. He started to have a bad feeling about things and reached for the granola bar as ordered, wolfing it down tastelessly. Then he sat back down at the table across from Sherlock, torn on whether he wanted him to start talking and get it over with, or just let the silence stretch out.

“Indigo.” He jumped slightly, finding Sherlock right next to him, caressing his cheek.

“Sorry,” Indigo said quickly. “I was just—Was someone else here just now?” He was going to worry about this from now on, he felt.

“No, you just zoned out,” Sherlock assured him. “It’s my fault, I’ve worried you. Don’t worry, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Why am I _more_ worried now?” Indigo joked weakly.

Sherlock frowned. “Evidently I’m not very reassuring,” he judged. “Let’s go sit on the couch.”

Indigo caught his arm. “Could you just tell me, please?” he requested.

Sherlock sighed. “Alright. It _is_ Wednesday.”

Indigo blinked up at him. “It’s Monday.”

“No. Wednesday.”

Indigo’s mind refused to work for a moment. Then he stood and went back to the bedroom, where his phone sat on the nightstand. It said Wednesday. He went around and got Sherlock’s. It also said Wednesday.

He turned around to see Sherlock leaning in the doorway. “It’s Wednesday,” Indigo said dumbly.

“Yes.”

“I can’t have been asleep for two days,” Indigo protested.

Sherlock walked over to him. “Well, your body wasn’t, but your consciousness was,” he said blithely, taking Indigo’s arms. “I’m very glad to have you back by the way, I missed—“

“Can you please explain?” Indigo interrupted, trying to keep calm. “Who’s been here for _two days,_ but not me?”

“Can you sit down?” Indigo sat on the edge of the bed and Sherlock perched next to him. “I’ve been waiting to tell you,” he began with some excitement. “It’s been really—“

Indigo took a deep breath, loudly. Sherlock got the hint.

“I met Hamish!” he announced brightly. “Er, UnderHim. They’re the same. He prefers to be called Hamish now.”

“Ham—what?” stuttered Indigo.

“Hamish,” Sherlock repeated. “Same as UnderHim, the first alter, who directs the others. I met him.”

“Why does he call himself Hamish?” Indigo wanted to know, grasping at this point.

“You know, I’m not sure,” Sherlock admitted thoughtfully. “I didn’t ask him that. Hmm, it’s Welsh, I think—“

“It’s Scottish for James,” Indigo informed him. “And it’s—it was—my middle name.”

“John Hamish Watson?” Sherlock pronounced, and Indigo winced slightly before nodding, having not heard the whole thing in a long time. “Seems like he might have mentioned that,” Sherlock added, slightly peeved. “Wait, I assumed Jamie’s full name was James, why would—“ Too late Sherlock realized he should’ve kept that thought to himself for a little while longer, but by then Indigo was starting to hyperventilate.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Sherlock tried to soothe him in a calm, even tone. “Just breathe. In, out. You’re alright, you’re safe—“ He put his arm around Indigo and pulled him close when he thought he wouldn’t suffocate. He felt Indigo’s arms go around him, hands clutching at his ribs.

“How do you know about Jamie?” Indigo asked hoarsely, hiccupping on the name he hadn’t said in years.

“I know all about Jamie,” Sherlock claimed, trying to sound upbeat. “I’ve met him. Quite nice, especially for a child.”

“What?” Indigo asked in total confusion, pulling back to look at Sherlock. He wiped at his moist eyes quickly, knowing how his master felt about tears.

“Jamie’s an alter,” Sherlock told him, still conveying this as good news. “He’s the sixth alter.”

“Was he _always_ an alter?” Indigo asked faintly.

“No, no, no, he was real, and after he died you preserved a memory of him,” Sherlock tried to explain. “He’s very happy. He plays all day long.”

Indigo started to tear up again and tried to stop himself. “Do you—do you know how he died?” he checked.

“Well, I know what _you_ know,” Sherlock said delicately. “Hamish and I—we went to Braxtonwood. We went to the farm—“

“I’m going to be sick,” Indigo decided and headed for the loo.

Sherlock followed him after a moment, when he didn’t hear any sick noises. Indigo was sitting on the floor by the toilet, knees drawn up under his chin. “Indigo?” He looked up briefly. “Indigo, do you realize,” Sherlock stated, “that there are at least six people who are quite invested in keeping you safe? So there’s no reason that you should let something that happened so long ago frighten you this much.”

He tried to say this as sensitively as possible, though he wasn’t sure he was actually capable of being suitably sensitive. Indigo uncurled a little bit, though. “I guess—I guess maybe you do have a point,” he agreed slowly, sniffling.

“I would like to tell you more about it,” Sherlock offered. “Will you come to the couch, or the bed? Hamish only told me because he knew you were important to me, and he didn’t want me to get it wrong.”

At this Indigo smiled a little and accepted Sherlock’s help getting back up. “Not going to be sick?” he checked.

“Not just yet.”

“Mmm, how about the bed?” Sherlock suggested distrustfully. It was closer to the toilet, just in case.

They curled back up under the blankets, Indigo suddenly feeling chilled. “Jamie was James Ian,” he offered quietly, “and I was John Hamish. I suppose someone thought they were being clever.” He took a deep breath as though bracing himself. “Could you start at the beginning, please?”

“A linear retelling? That’s very dull,” Sherlock protested. “What level of detail do you want?”

“Why don’t you just start talking,” Indigo advised slowly, a sign he was losing patience, “and I’ll interrupt if I have a question.”

Sherlock found it prudent to agree at this point. “Alright. So, Sunday night I was still awake and I thought you were asleep, but then Sleepy showed up! I showed him how the security system worked and introduced him to Mrs. Hudson. Then we—“

“Hang on,” Indigo interrupted as promised. “You introduced SleepingHim to Mrs. Hudson? What did you tell her?”

He seemed a little upset about this, which Sherlock didn’t understand. “We agreed we would tell her—“

“No, you threw the idea out there, I didn’t agree,” Indigo shot back. Then he added in a quieter tone, “Not that I _have_ to agree, of course…”

Sherlock rolled his eyes at this hasty remembrance of being a slave. “Well, I’m sorry, I thought you’d agreed,” he said. “It seemed like a sensible precaution, especially with one of the alters right there wanting to roam through her flat to ‘secure the perimeter.’”

Indigo sighed. “What did you tell her?”

“That you had dissociative identity disorder and this was one of your alters, who was a guardian,” Sherlock relayed, as if it should be obvious. What _else_ would he tell her? “He recognized her and said she was safe.”

“And what did _she_ say?” Indigo wanted to know, for some bizarre reason.

Sherlock blinked. “I don’t remember. Nothing important.”

“Please continue,” Indigo requested.

“Well, then Sleepy said that he didn’t actually _need_ to be here, he just _wanted_ to, to see me!” Sherlock conveyed in delight.

“G-d,” Indigo replied, rolling his eyes. “Seriously?”

“Yes!” Sherlock insisted, not sure why this was so hard to believe. “Well, he got a bit upset at one point—I think he was thinking of you and/or Jamie as children—and he let me hug him!”

“I thought he didn’t like to be touched.”

“He doesn’t, that’s the point,” Sherlock reiterated. “He likes me so much, he let me hug him when he got upset.”

For some reason Indigo just seemed skeptical about this. “Were _you_ the one who upset him?”

Sherlock had to think back. “Well, inadvertently, I suppose,” he admitted. “Oh, but it was related to that curious thing Fury said, which I finally understand now. About the one who is guarded being third? That’s Jamie. First there was Hamish, then Sleepy, _then_ Jamie, then Fury—“

“You’ve lost me,” Indigo told him.

“Where?”

“I’m not understanding how Jamie is an alter,” Indigo tried to articulate. “He was my brother, a real person—“ He stopped himself to calm down.

Sherlock understood now what Hamish had meant when he said this would be hard to explain. Would the alter have any insight here? Somehow Sherlock had the idea he was on his own.

“Hamish appeared after Jamie died,” he began. “You couldn’t handle being in that environment alone.” Indigo kept his eyes studiously downcast, on the fingers he was rubbing in random swirls on Sherlock’s arm. “SleepingHim appeared to protect you at night, when Hamish realized that was necessary. Then—somehow—your memories of Jamie were preserved as an alter. He plays all day long in the country with his brother”—Indigo drew in a shuddery breath—“and never thinks of anything bad,” Sherlock assured him again. “All the other alters are very protective of him. Hamish says he’s a symbol of what they’re trying to keep safe, innocence and hope and… all that.” Indigo smirked a little at his attempt to relate to this. “Hamish said it was like he was in the fields of Elysium. Do you know what he means? I forgot to look it up.” Indigo nodded but declined to explain. “So, anyway, Jamie’s in there,” Sherlock emphasized, tapping lightly at Indigo’s forehead. “I’ve met him several times. I’ve got him on film. He wrote you a note and drew some pictures, and I got him some books and cartoons for when he—“ Indigo hugged Sherlock suddenly, burying his face against his shoulder. Sherlock’s arms went around him automatically. “Indigo?”

He felt him sniffle, then try to stop himself. Then he cleared his throat. “Thank you,” Indigo said, his voice thick.

“What for?”

“Taking care of Jamie. And the others. And me.” He laughed wetly. “It’s more than you meant to take on.”

“Hamish did say they can be difficult to manage,” Sherlock admitted thoughtfully. “But I think I’m getting them whipped into shape. Er, poor choice of words, sorry,” he corrected quickly. “Though that reminds me, did you know—well, how would you—Charlie is quite an artist? And Saucy likes to write. I’m trying to encourage their hobbies.”

“That’s… really strange,” Indigo sighed. He curled up more comfortably against Sherlock. “Tell me more.”

“Well, Sleepy and I watched the telly for a while. I don’t think he understood most of it, but then again I didn’t either,” Sherlock shrugged. “He really liked this nature documentary we found, about tigers. Those are the large orange cats, aren’t they? Anyway,” he went on, “the next morning I got up and Hamish was here, pretending to be you. Only I saw right through that, of course—“

“Wait, _pretending_ to be me?” Indigo repeated with some alarm. “Do they often do that?”

“Well, after I got mad he promised to never try and trick me again,” Sherlock relayed, his tone expressing how stern he’d had to be. “But yes, of _course_ they have to pretend to be you, basically whenever they appear they’re pretending to be you—“

“I _know_ , I mean—“ Indigo struggled to explain. “I mean, explicitly. Trying to _act_ like I would act, as opposed to… sex kittens or whatever—“

“Oh. Well, yes, sometimes they have to pretend to be you,” Sherlock admitted. “But not lately, oh except for at Simmerson’s with the ring—“

“Ring?” Indigo repeated blankly. “Star’s ring, that was found under the bed?”

“When did you first hear about that?” Sherlock quizzed.

“Some of the kitchen slaves were talking about it,” Indigo remembered. “Lestrade found it in the evidence that had been gathered when Simmerson died.”

“Do you recall everyone being gathered in the parlor, so Lestrade could go over all the facts?”

“Vaguely,” Indigo replied. “I zoned out pretty fast, and didn’t come to until you woke me when it was time to leave.”

Sherlock nodded critically. “Actually, when Lestrade first pulled out the ring, you spoke up and said it was Star’s.”

Indigo blinked at him. “No, I didn’t.” Sherlock gave him a look. “That was Under—Hamish? Taking over my body?”

He seemed a little distressed by this. “Calm down, he’s not a poltergeist,” Sherlock advised. “He saw that the ring was an important piece of evidence and popped up to identify it without bothering you.” Well _that_ didn’t leave anything out.

“It’s disturbing,” Indigo maintained, but he settled back down in Sherlock’s arms.

“Anyway—where was I? Right, so Hamish and I chatted, and he said he wanted to answer the questions I had about your past,” Sherlock continued. “Because he knew I was about to start looking things up, and if I got it wrong you would be needlessly upset.”

“I am honestly not sure how your incorrect ideas could have been _more_ upsetting than the truth,” Indigo said dryly. “Which I _do_ remember, by the way. Not everything, I’m sure, but… enough.” He cleared his throat. “Please continue.”

“So Hamish and I went to Braxtonwood—oh, well, first he met Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock corrected. “Linear is _really_ not the most efficient way to convey information,” he complained.

“You’re doing marvelously,” Indigo deadpanned.

“Fine. Braxtonwood. I did _not_ look up anything about it in advance, per Hamish’s request,” Sherlock boasted. “This was very difficult.”

“You’ve been a saint.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” Sherlock guessed.

“A little bit, yes.”

Sherlock was okay with this. “Well, not that there was much to look up, there’s not much there, is there?”

“No. Did you—did I—or Hamish—“ The pronouns were tripping Indigo up. “Did anyone recognize… me?”

Sherlock shook his head. “No. We weren’t in the town long. Anyway, Hamish took off the collar and we pretended his name was John and I was his boyfriend—“

Indigo squirmed around, looking more horrified by this than by anything else so far. “He _what_?!”

“Sorry, was I mumbling? He pretended his name was John and he wasn’t a slave and I was his boyfriend,” Sherlock repeated matter-of-factly. “What?”

“That’s just—it’s very—“ Indigo seemed at a loss for words.

“Shall I continue?” Sherlock asked after a moment.

“No, not yet.” Indigo tried to articulate what was bothering him. “If someone can just—take off their collar and go by a different name—call their master their— _boyfriend_ —“ He flushed slightly at this word.

“Well, it was alright with me,” Sherlock promised, in case that was the problem. “We were undercover. You’ve pretended not to be a slave before, you were quite good at it—“

“I was terrified every moment that someone was going to catch me,” Indigo reminded him. “I’ve told you what happens to uncollared slaves who are caught.”

“Well, Hamish wasn’t worried, it was _his_ idea,” Sherlock tried to explain, not really getting the problem. “I was right there, and he brought the collar along in case we met anyone we knew from London, unlikely as it seemed. Hamish is extremely intelligent,” Sherlock mused thoughtfully. “Reminds me of myself, actually.”

“Well, that must have been jolly.”

Sherlock gave Indigo a narrow look. “He doesn’t interrupt with unnecessary snide remarks,” he noted pointedly.

“Sorry.” This seemed less than sincere.

“You know, ever since he came into existence, his _one_ thought has been about how to protect you,” Sherlock told Indigo pointedly. He just didn’t seem to appreciate what Hamish had done for him. “Most people barely have enough focus to pick out their clothes in the morning, let alone—“

“He doesn’t _wear_ clothes,” Indigo just had to say. “ _I_ wear the clothes!”

“That’s my point,” Sherlock claimed. Indigo sighed and collapsed on the pillow. “You know what he was doing when I first saw him? He was eating _sausage_. It’s not that he _likes_ sausage, he was eating it because he thinks you don’t get enough protein. That was a big clue, actually,” Sherlock confided, “because I know _you_ don’t like sausage.”

“I like sausage,” Indigo contradicted.

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

Sherlock felt he was just being contrary now. “I’ve never seen you eat it! Hamish said you didn’t like it either.” That ought to be definitive.

“Well both of you should pay more attention,” Indigo huffed.

Sherlock paused a moment, trying to get himself back on track. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or shall we continue arguing about _sausage_?”

“I’m just having trouble reconciling with the fact that there’s someone… in me… who acts so differently,” Indigo finally admitted. “It’s creepy.”

“Oh, it’s marvelous!” Sherlock insisted, predictably. “Hamish is really brilliant, and devoted to you and the alters, and very—“ He rethought saying ‘ruthless,’ which might lead to some uncomfortable questions. “—clear-minded,” Sherlock finished. “Most people are terribly muddled with feelings and other useless information.”

“So you’ve said. Alright, so you went to Braxtonwood,” Indigo reiterated, encouraging him to go on. “Thanks for telling me to eat first, by the way, I didn’t realize this was going to be an epic in the tradition of _Beowulf_.”

“Is that more Greek mythology?” Sherlock asked curiously. Indigo’s look suggested no, but that it was not important. _That_ was exactly the sort of stuff clogging up Indigo’s brain that kept him from being a slightly sociopathic genius like Hamish or Sherlock.

For once, Sherlock decided to keep that particular thought, insightful though it was, to himself.

“We drove out to the farm—someone lived there, old people, school librarian?” he continued. “Didn’t actually recognize Hamish but pretended to when he made up some nonsense—“

“Mrs. McGillicutty?” Indigo guessed, sounding amazed.

“Maybe. She let us look around the house and yard,” Sherlock described. “We hit all the highlights, the parlor, the well, the closet in the master bedroom—“

“Are _you_ being sarcastic?” Indigo wanted to know.

Sherlock took in his expression. “I meant ‘highlights’ in perhaps not the most obvious way,” he amended.

“Okay.”

“See, we had to pretend we were just casually looking around,” Sherlock tried to explain, “because we weren’t going to tell total strangers what we were really there to see.”

Indigo nodded slowly at this, pulling the blankets back up over his shoulder. “Was Hamish able—“ He paused, biting back a sudden smile, as Sherlock tucked the blanket in behind him better. “Was Hamish _able_ to pretend he was just casually looking around?” he asked curiously. Obviously, _he_ wouldn’t have been.

“Yes, he was quite masterful,” Sherlock praised.

“Did it—hmm.” Indigo seemed uncertain how to phrase this. “I wonder if it looked very different.”

“Hamish said it did,” Sherlock reported. “Someone had owned it before this couple, after it had stood empty for a while, and done quite a makeover. Your bedroom is now purple and lacy.”

“I _am_ glad I didn’t see that.”

“Then we went to this inn and we stayed in a cabin, but it was fine,” Sherlock assured him. “Not rustic at all.”

“Yes, that would’ve been a downer.”

Sherlock graciously ignored this pointless remark. “And that’s when I met Jamie. He drew a treasure map, because he was going to play _pirates_ with Johnny, and I helped—“ Indigo rolled into his shoulder again, but his body language suggested Sherlock should continue. “I helped draw a pirate ship. I’m not sure how realistic it is, but the crew is made up of alters, and you’re the captain!” This seemed like the sort of nonsensical but cheerful thing Indigo would appreciate.

His shoulders started to shake, though, and Sherlock feared he was crying again. Not an unpredictable consequence of this conversation, he supposed, so he tried to be compassionate and patted Indigo’s back. Indigo finally pulled back a bit, to show Sherlock that he was actually _laughing_ , which the other man found perplexing indeed.

“I’m trying to picture you with a child,” he sputtered at last. “Drawing pirates!”

“It _was_ somewhat challenging.” Sherlock was confident enough to admit that. “I wished you were there to help me, but that would’ve been—“

Indigo laughed harder. “Bloody confusing!” Sherlock waited until he got the chuckles out of his system. “Did you—what happened to the drawings?” he asked.

“Hamish kept them,” Sherlock replied. “Oh, that’s you.” Indigo started laughing again at the absurdity of it. “Can we look at them later? You’re easily sidetracked.”

Indigo giggled and Sherlock looked at him hard to see if Saucy had emerged, but no, it just seemed to be Indigo releasing tension. “There’s more?” he asked. “What else could possibly have happened?”

“Well, then Hamish came back and we chatted for a bit,” Sherlock summarized quickly, “and then we had sex. That’s the first of your alters I’ve had sex with and I said I would tell you about it. Well, it turns out Hamish likes to top, which was a novel experience for me, but not unpleasant and possibly we could try it sometime—“ He stopped when he saw Indigo staring at him, eyes wide as saucers. “You _did_ say it was alright that I had sex with your alters,” Sherlock reminded him. “I remember that distinctly. Indigo?”

“Sorry, I am trying to catch up,” Indigo answered faintly. “You and Hamish had sex.”

“Yes.”

“Actually, Hamish, um—“ He was trying to figure out how to say it without being crude. Sherlock wasn’t embarrassed, of course; if anything, slightly impatient. “Hmm. I’m trying to imagine it.” It was nice to know Sherlock wasn’t opposed to it.

“You’ve had sex with women before,” Sherlock noted, as if this was somehow equivalent. “With mistresses, even.”

“I’ve actually never topped a master before, that I remember,” Indigo clarified, “and frankly I’m rather sad I don’t remember _this_.”

“Well, as I said—perhaps you missed that part—we could try it,” Sherlock repeated. Indigo had most assuredly _not_ missed that part, but he didn’t mind hearing it again. “Only I thought Hamish was rather bossy. I suppose he’s used to being in charge, but that would have to be modified.”

Indigo couldn’t help it any longer and fell against Sherlock, laughing again. “You would be a very challenging bottom,” he finally choked out.

“Thank you.” This made Indigo laugh again, so it may or may not have been the correct response.

After a moment Indigo tried to recover. “So you and Hamish had sex,” he repeated, a last snicker escaping. “And then what?”

“Well, we chatted more about the alters and how to look after them, and we went shopping for things for them,” Sherlock described.

“G-d, that’s sweet.” No sarcasm there, even Sherlock could tell that.

“I got a notebook that they could leave you notes in, and I filmed them all writing the first note,” he added. “Hamish was supposed to explain this to them, but some of them were rather contrary,” he complained.

Indigo kissed him unexpectedly. “I’m sorry, they probably get that from me,” he allowed.

“Mmm, yes.” Sherlock pulled him closer. “Oh, also I had sex with Saucy.”

“Finally!” Indigo teased.

“A couple of times. Well, it depends on how you count. Multiple occasions.”

“You oughtn’t play favorites, you’ll upset them,” Indigo claimed, nuzzling his neck.

“Well, I need to get to know Charlie better,” Sherlock judged, running his hand through Indigo’s hair. “Not sure if Sleepy’s really into that sort of thing or not. Now Fury would be—“

Indigo’s head snapped up. “Sherlock, you can’t be serious.”

“ _You_ seem very serious,” Sherlock observed with a frown.

“Fury is _dangerous_ , he could _hurt_ you—“

Sherlock realized that all Indigo knew of Fury was the figure who had used his body to destroy furniture and punch a wall—and to kill people. “No, it’s alright,” he tried to reassure Indigo, rubbing his arms. “Fury’s not going to hurt me, none of them are going to hurt me. I treat you well, I treat _them_ well—okay, a low bar considering what they’re used to, but really, it’s okay.” Indigo seemed unconvinced. “It’s like what Sleepy said Sunday night—the alters don’t want to be dormant again, they want to interact with me. They _like_ me.”

“You seem confident on this point,” Indigo noted skeptically.

“Well, yes.”

“You don’t think they might just be… manipulating you?” he asked worriedly. “There _is_ a rather strong streak of deceit in what they do.”

Sherlock appreciated his concern, but felt comfortable dismissing it. “For one thing, I’ve met them, and you haven’t.”

“That’s a bit unfair.”

“Well, we’ll watch the video in a minute, I made it for you. Secondly,” Sherlock went on, “given all the advantages being friends with me has offered over the years, surprisingly few people have managed it.”

This response seemed to startle Indigo. “Oh.”

“I alienate people,” Sherlock conceded breezily. “Granted, I’ve tried to be more polite to the alters because they’re attached to you—“

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Don’t interrupt. But let’s be honest, they see how I am the rest of the time and they _still_ want to be friends,” Sherlock pointed out. “That’s quite hard to fake. Even _you_ fail sometimes.”

“I don’t fake—“ He paused to consider. “I see your point,” he finally allowed. “I don’t really think you’re—mmmm.” Sherlock waited as Indigo tried to refute him. “I think Lestrade likes you,” he finally said. “Oh, and Mrs. Hudson.”

“I’m not sure either of those examples really supports your argument,” Sherlock countered, “which is apparently that _many_ people like me, which is absurd on the face of it, and not desirable either.”

“Okay,” Indigo eventually agreed, since Sherlock didn’t seem upset about it. “Oh, Angelo,” he had to throw in anyway. Sherlock gave him a look. “Sorry. What did you do after you finished shagging my alters and buying them presents?”

Sherlock blinked at his flippant summary but decided it meant Indigo was pleased with the situation. “That’s about all,” he decided. “Do you want to read their notes?” Maybe he ought to let the alters speak for themselves.

“Yes,” Indigo affirmed, and Sherlock looked around.

“Over there, that blue notebook,” he said, pointing to the nightstand on Indigo’s side. Indigo rolled over to reach it. “You can keep it with you, and the alters can write you notes when they appear. You can leave notes for them, too,” he added, “though I guess Hamish conveys things to them pretty well.”

Indigo seemed reluctant to open the notebook, instead sitting there holding it in his hands, ostensibly admiring it. “This is nice,” he said. “Blue for Indigo?”

“Are you going to read it?” Sherlock prompted. “Hamish said there wasn’t anything disturbing in it, although I’m not really sure about his judgment in that—“

“You haven’t read it?” Indigo asked in surprise.

“No. It’s yours.” Sherlock knew he’d made the right decision (difficult though it was) when he saw Indigo’s expression. “I’m very curious, though,” he hinted.

Indigo smirked at this and sat up in bed, facing Sherlock, and finally opened the cover. Sherlock knew which order the entries were in, of course, and that he would first be looking at Hamish’s.

“Hmm, very neat, very precise,” Indigo described. “He put the date _and_ the time. Very elegant handwriting.” Sherlock tried to be patient, wondering if he ought not to bother and just go take his shower, if Indigo wasn’t going to tell him what they’d said. “ _Hello. My name is Hamish, also known as UnderHim_ ,” Indigo read at last. There was a pause as he skimmed the next lines first. “ _I apologize if we frightened you. Our goal is only to protect you_.”

“Is that all?” Sherlock asked when he stopped.

“That’s all,” Indigo agreed, turning the notebook around to face him. “Short and to the point.”

Sherlock studied the page. “I’ll need a sample of your handwriting later for comparison,” he planned.

“Shall I go on?” He handed the notebook back and Indigo turned the page. He smiled slightly. “Oh, it’s Sleepy,” he realized. That was the only alter he’d seen so far on video, and the one who’d left him a note before. “ _You_ ,” he began to read. “It’s all caps, by the way. _I protect at night, AT NIGHT_ , repeat and emphasis.” Sherlock rolled his eyes. “ _Now it is DAY_ , emphasis. _But I will protect you anyway_. Oh, that’s sweet,” Indigo decided, then added in a chiding tone to Sherlock, “You made him come out during the _day_?”

“I wanted them all in quick succession,” Sherlock protested. “They just need to get used to how I do things.”

Indigo smirked again and kept reading. “ _Watch out for snakes. I have a knife under the pillow_. Signed, Sleepy. Oh look, he’s drawn me a picture of a snake with its head cut off,” he noted, finally showing the page to Sherlock. “He’s a funny, demented little thing, isn’t he?”

Meanwhile Sherlock was digging under Indigo’s pillow. “Ah, here it is,” he proclaimed, pulling out a steak knife. “When did he grab this? I’d swear he was never out of my sight.”

“I kind of like this one,” Indigo claimed. “I kind of want to cuddle him or something.”

Sherlock was not sure if Indigo was serious or not, or if he was, if that was normal. “He doesn’t like being touched,” he reminded him. “Though, I do sometimes feel the same way.”

“Better put the knife back, he might be upset without it,” Indigo advised, so Sherlock did so. Then Indigo turned the page, and Sherlock watched the kaleidoscope of emotions play across his face. It was Jamie’s note.

Indigo read through it all, maybe twice, smiling at some points though his eyes were also damp. Sherlock wished he’d recorded the moment so he could go back and see it again in slow motion, try to identify everything he saw there. He was certain he himself was incapable of feeling at least half of those emotions.

“ _Dear Indigo_ ,” he finally read aloud. “ _My name is Jamie. Today my brother and I played at being Egyptian mummies! We wrapped up in sheets and first I was the cursed mummy chasing the archaeologist, and then Johnny was. Uncle Sherlock doesn’t know what an archaeologist is!_ ” Indigo’s tone was rather teasing at this point. “ _Sorry_ _if I spelled anything wrong. Love, Jamie_.” He cleared his throat and turned the book for Sherlock to read. “How can you not know what an archaeologist is?”

Sherlock sensed this might just be a deflecting technique and was less irritated than usual when confronted with (immaterial) gaps in his knowledge. “Is it relevant to my life? Doubtful,” he judged. “Mummification rarely comes up in modern murders. Though the process itself is interesting.” Indigo rolled his eyes. “He _did_ spell quite a few words wrong,” Sherlock observed. “I shall have to tutor him. I imagine his formal education was lacking.”

“Yes,” Indigo agreed dryly. “He seems to have picked up a few things, though.” Sherlock made a mental note to look up what an archaeologist was and how one related to mummification, as he suspected this subject was going to recur. Then Indigo turned to the next page and frowned.

“That’s Fury,” Sherlock quickly said. “He was rather irritated with me. But he doesn’t mean any of it—“

Indigo smirked, which Sherlock was not sure how to interpret. “ _I am Fury_ ,” he read. “ _I kill to protect you_.” It was strange, for Sherlock, to hear the words coming from Indigo a second time, but in a totally different manner than originally. “ _But, I will not kill HIM_ , all caps, emphasis, _even though he’s annoying_. Signed, Fury.” Indigo looked at Sherlock in a manner that suggested he was waiting for an explanation.

“See, I told you, it’s fine,” Sherlock reminded him.

This was not sufficient for Indigo. “What were you doing to annoy him?” he wanted to know.

“Oh, he didn’t want to leave a note for you, very contrary,” Sherlock dismissed. “I thought maybe he _couldn’t_ read or write at first, how’s his spelling?” Indigo turned the notebook around to show Sherlock the surprisingly small, neat printing, properly spelled.

“You keep saying they like you,” Indigo commented dubiously, “but I’m not seeing much evidence of it. Two of four so far seem to have complaints about you.”

He looked very serious as he said this. “You’re not seeing them at their best,” Sherlock tried to tell him. “Didn’t I just say Sleepy hugged me and watched telly with me? And I think the fact that Fury hasn’t punched me should be counted as a win. Er, don’t you think?” he elicited, not sure if Indigo was mad at him or not.

Indigo grinned at him suddenly. “No, I’m sure it’s alright,” he promised Sherlock. “I believe you. I guess it’s no surprise they’re a bit eccentric.”

“Poor socialization skills, especially the early ones,” Sherlock agreed, relieved.

“Well let’s not get carried away.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Indigo shook his head and turned to the next note, which was Saucy’s. His eyebrows rose first at the length, presumably, and then as he read through it he began to smirk and even flush faintly. “Well _this_ one certainly likes you,” he told Sherlock with amusement.

“What did he write?” Sherlock asked curiously, but Indigo pulled it to his chest when he tried to look. “I told him not to write anything graphic, in case Jamie read it—“

“Oh, it’s very lovesick thirteen-year-old girl,” Indigo described gleefully. He studied the passage again, glancing between it and Sherlock as though comparing the two. “Hmm, well, I agree about your eyes… and your cheekbones… never noticed _that_ before but I suppose he’s right…” Sherlock rolled his eyes at the juvenile but, he felt, good-natured teasing. “It’s a full-fledged mash note about you, Sherlock,” Indigo judged finally. “I’m a bit jealous, actually.”

“Don’t be,” Sherlock insisted. “I do like Saucy, but only because he’s attached to you.” This made Indigo smile, though Sherlock was only trying to be honest.

Finally he turned to the last page (having _not_ let Sherlock actually read Saucy’s comments, he noticed). “Oh, he’s drawn a picture,” Indigo said, of Charlie’s entry.

“Is it good? What is it?” Sherlock wanted to know.

Indigo was frowning, though. “ _Nobody likes me_ ,” he read soberly. “ _That’s okay, I get it. I did what I had to do to protect you. I’d do it again. Charlie._ ”

“That’s what he wrote? Yes, he seems a little bitter,” Sherlock agreed.

Indigo looked up at him with a questioning gaze. “Do _you_ like Charlie, Sherlock?” he asked seriously.

This was one of those questions, Sherlock thought, where there was _definitely_ a wrong answer. “I _appreciate_ Charlie,” he replied carefully. “I think maybe I will _like_ him more later, as I get to know him. I’m hoping he’s more fully realized than he appears now.”

Indigo did not seem heartened by this, but Sherlock wasn’t going to lie and say that Charlie was someone he looked forward to seeing right now. Then Indigo nodded as if he accepted this and turned the book around to show the drawing to Sherlock. “That’s me,” he said, seeming pleased.

The sketch was quick and rough, depicting a young boy’s face with reasonable skill; Sherlock couldn’t say how accurate it was, of course, but there were Indigo-esque hints around the eyes. “How do you know it’s not Jamie?” he asked curiously.

“It’s _labeled_ ,” Indigo deadpanned, of the word _Johnny_ scrawled beside the picture. “Also Jamie had some freckles and I didn’t, it was the main way people could tell us apart,” he added. “But why should Charlie know what I looked like as a child?” he wondered in confusion. “I thought he was only created a few years ago.”

Good question. “He must have access to a store of pooled memories,” Sherlock theorized.

“Perhaps you could check using a Vulcan mind-meld,” Indigo suggested.

From his tone, Sherlock concluded sarcasm, but that was all he could deduce. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It was easy to admit when he could presume it wasn’t actually important.

Indigo smiled, which he liked to see, even if it _was_ at his expense. “I know.” He flipped through the rest of the notebook, which was empty.

“You should keep that with you at all times,” Sherlock advised. “The alters are supposed to leave you a note whenever they appear, but I’m not sure how reliable they’ll be.”

“This is supposed to help, is it?” Indigo checked.

“Well, yes.” Sherlock had done a lot of research on this. “Since now you know about them and they aren’t going away, you ought to get to know them better. Like earlier this morning, you were worried someone had taken over when you zoned out,” Sherlock reminded him. “Now you can check the notebook and see what’s been going on.”

Indigo had something else on his mind, though. “Are you going to send me to a therapist?” he wanted to know. It certainly wasn’t unheard-of for slaves, but it was considered rather indulgent, akin to sending one’s dog to counseling. Sherlock would be the type to do that, though, if he had a dog.

“No. Do you _want_ to see one?” he asked curiously.

“I _have_ seen them before,” Indigo answered instead. “A lot when my parents died, and also in the Army.” He frowned. “How did they miss _this_?”

“People aren’t looking for _this_ ,” Sherlock theorized. “And the alters have gotten good at hiding from doctors.”

“That seems… problematic,” Indigo noted dubiously.

“Well, you also have to consider that nobody really cared before,” Sherlock pointed out. “Which perhaps I should have rephrased,” he realized after a moment.

“No, it seems fairly accurate,” Indigo admitted with a sigh. “I mean, Simmerson with Charlie and Saucy, well, Saucy with anyone—people must’ve _noticed_ something was different, they just didn’t care about why.”

“I care.”

“Too much, perhaps,” Indigo decided, trying for a lighter tone. “What else have you to show me? Did you say there was video?”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, springing into action. “Shall I bring the laptop in here?” he asked as he popped out of bed.

“Alright,” Indigo decided. “I’ll make some more tea. Maybe some toast first.”

A few minutes later they reconvened in the bedroom, Sherlock bearing the laptop with a small stack of notebooks and folders, and Indigo with tea and toast. Sherlock took a partially-eaten piece of toast from Indigo’s plate and bit into it, then paused. “Something wrong?” Indigo inquired.

Sherlock frowned thoughtfully. “Hamish said I had emotional issues regarding food, and you have to trick me into eating,” he paraphrased.

“Oh, that’s not a very nice thing to say, is it?” Indigo replied in a slightly soothing tone, which Sherlock took as confirmation. “I think we’re not into micromanaging each other that way, are we?”

“Why aren’t you eating the rest of your toast?” Sherlock asked, a bit accusingly, nodding at another half-finished piece on Indigo’s plate.

“Oh, I expect I will in a bit,” Indigo demurred. “Or perhaps I’ll make something else. Did you say there was sausage somewhere?”

It all sounded normal enough, but now Sherlock was suspicious as he crunched through the piece he’d taken. “Why would I only want to eat food someone else has been eating on?” he mused aloud. “Some sort of subconscious fear of poison?”

“I really don’t know,” Indigo claimed mildly, as though it wasn’t worth worrying about, and Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“Are you eating that toast?”

“No.”

“Fine.” Sherlock took it. “At least we both like butter and raspberry jam.”

“Yes,” Indigo agreed, but Sherlock read something different from his face.

“Oh, you _don’t_ like it?” he surmised, with some indignation. “G-d. That’s so manipulative of you. What do you prefer?”

“Orange marmalade.”

“That’s _so_ disgusting,” Sherlock opined, and Indigo nodded as if he’d known that would be Sherlock’s response. “You may eat orange marmalade on your toast,” he conceded.

“Oh, it really doesn’t matter,” Indigo claimed.

“It’s what you _eat_ , oughtn’t it matter?” Sherlock asked. He really didn’t know. Obviously eating in general didn’t matter much to _him_ , but he’d always been told that was abnormal.

“I’m glad to _have_ food,” Indigo shrugged, thinking of times in the past when he hadn’t.

“You’re very difficult to figure out sometimes,” Sherlock judged, unable to tell how sincere he was being.

“And now it’s times seven,” Indigo responded dryly, and Sherlock snorted.

“Eat what you want,” he finally instructed, cleaning his hands. “You ready?”

Indigo scooted closer to him, propping some pillows up behind them. “What’s all this?”

Sherlock started with the folders. “These are some drawings Jamie did,” he explained.

“Oh, has he labeled who they’re for?” Indigo guessed, looking at the large, childish printing on the outside of the folders. One was for Johnny, one for Indigo, and one for Sherlock.

“Yes. It’s, er, awkward to explain that Johnny and Indigo are the same person,” Sherlock admitted as they leafed through the pictures.

“They aren’t really, though,” Indigo decided, gazing at the pirate ship. “Johnny’s a child, his playmate. Indigo is an adult… with a striking resemblance to Abraham Lincoln,” he added, squinting at the captain stick figure with the tall hat.

“That name perhaps sounds familiar,” Sherlock decided. “Does he play football?” Indigo actually turned to look at him for a moment, so Sherlock assumed this was incorrect. Then he shook his head and moved on.

“This is really wonderful,” Indigo was moved to add after a few minutes. “He seems so happy. I mean, we _were_ happy, when it was just the two of us playing. It’s lovely you got him crayons.”

“Hamish came up with a set of eight colors somewhere,” Sherlock described, “but when we went to the store I found a box of _ninety-six_. Ninety-six different colors!” he marveled. “I’d never heard of most of them. Jamie and I tested them all and I arranged them in the box for him according to the color spectrum, but he keeps messing them up,” he added in complaint.

“Oh, you were one of _those_ children,” Indigo said knowingly, as if this was bad.

“What children?”

“The ones who always had to have everything arranged just so,” he predicted. “Books in alphabetical order, clothes grouped by color, pencils lined up by length.”

Sherlock sensed he was being teased, though affectionately. “Efficient organization is key to rapid acquisition of information,” he replied crisply. “Though admittedly, the other children didn’t seem to agree.”

Indigo leaned more against him, a mollifying gesture. “Well, just don’t be too strict with Jamie,” he requested. “He’s more of a free spirit.”

They finished Jamie’s drawings and Sherlock picked up a green hardbound notebook. “This is Charlie’s sketchbook I got him after I realized he liked to draw,” he explained. “He hasn’t worked in it much yet.” They both stared dubiously at the cover. “Do you want me to check it first?” he offered.

“Let’s look together,” Indigo decided, and he opened the book.

“Perhaps I should specify he can’t draw anything disturbing,” Sherlock suggested after a moment.

“Art could be an important means of self-expression for him, I don’t think we should censor it,” Indigo countered mildly.

“The severed limbs don’t bother you, then?”

Indigo glanced at him, perhaps to see if he was joking. He ought to know better, Sherlock rarely joked. “Um, I don’t think they’re severed limbs,” Indigo corrected carefully. “I think he’s just drawn… hands. I think they’re supposed to be _your_ hands, you _do_ have nice hands.”

“I prefer them attached to my body.”

“Look, they aren’t—“ Indigo stopped and tried again. “You see a portrait of someone, like head and shoulders, you don’t assume those have been chopped off the rest of their body, do you?”

“I suppose that would depend on their expression,” Sherlock decided.

Indigo took one of his hands in a somewhat concerned gesture. “Mmm, well, _usually_ one assumes the rest of the person is just out of frame, that only a portion of them has been drawn.”

“I know that, I’m not an idiot.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” Indigo rubbed his hand soothingly.

“I didn’t know people did that with just hands, is all,” Sherlock conceded after a moment.

“Oh yes. No rules on that sort of thing.”

Sherlock snorted. “Yes, it seems like the art world would be chaotic in that fashion.”

That seemed to be it for the sketchbook, though. “Well, I told you, he didn’t work on it for long,” Sherlock repeated. “Maybe he _doesn’t_ actually like it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Indigo replied, studying the hand drawings again. “These seem rather good. I wonder when he practiced. Before, I mean.”

“Yes, one would think he would vanish as soon as he was no longer needed,” Sherlock agreed thoughtfully, “and not have time to sit around sketching. I’ll have to ask him sometime.” Indigo closed the sketchbook and put it aside, and Sherlock handed over the final item aside from the laptop, which was a red hardbound journal. “Saucy’s been scribbling away in this,” he reported. “I’ve no idea what it is, but it’s probably explicit.”

Indigo turned so he was facing Sherlock. “In that case I’d probably better read it first,” he decided with some amusement. He thought of something else and paused before opening it, though. “Do you think it’s like a diary, though?” he wondered. Sherlock had no idea. “Perhaps it’s meant to be private and I oughtn’t read it.”

Sherlock stared at him. “He’s in your head,” he was forced to point out.

“I know, but they ought to have some privacy if they want.”

Indigo did not seem to be kidding, so Sherlock was not sure where to go with that. “Um, he didn’t _say_ he wanted to keep it private,” he finally conveyed. “He just sat on the couch writing in it and giggling.”

“Giggling?”

“He giggles.”

“Ah.” Indigo gave it some more thought. “Well, I’ll start reading, and if it seems to be private, I’ll stop,” he decided. Sherlock did not really see what the dilemma was, but he nodded encouragingly anyway. Indigo opened the journal and his eyes widened almost immediately. It was apparently not private, however, as he kept reading and turned the page. Color started to rise in his cheeks.

“What is it?” Sherlock wanted to know, and Indigo looked up at him with a slightly guilty expression.

“Um,” he answered, and went back to reading.

Now Sherlock was _very_ intrigued. Given Saucy’s usual topics of conversation he could only imagine it was something of a highly sexual nature, though whether the promised ‘tips’ for Indigo or more like recollections, he couldn’t be sure. He frowned as he considered the possibilities. “It’s not upsetting you, is it?” he asked. “I didn’t know if he would write about the past, or—“

“No,” Indigo assured him, drawing the syllable out. He turned the page, which was apparently the last one. “It’s a story, a sci-fi story.”

“Science fiction,” Sherlock identified correctly. “What sort of story?”

Indigo turned back a page and read some again. “Well, it’s only just started,” he hedged, “but it appears as though you and Saucy have been kidnapped by aliens, who think you ought to be able to reproduce. So you’re giving it a go.” Sherlock stared at him until Indigo grinned, then laughed. “It’s really creative, though I’m not sure a human tongue can really do what he’s attributed to it so far.”

Sherlock blinked. “Is this a sign of mental instability?” he worried.

“In my alternate personality?” Indigo clarified dryly. “No, I think it’s the sign of a fertile imagination, and a rather worshipful obsession with _you_.”

He knew Sherlock wouldn’t object to _that_. “Oh. Alright then. Can I read it?”

“Mmm, not yet,” Indigo decided. “I think he ought to write more first. Enough that you get caught up and stop thinking things are illogical.”

“Oh, well, if it’s illogical—“

“Yes, a very illogical, very explicit scene so far,” Indigo agreed. He seemed to like it, though, because he was reading it again.

“So you think I ought to let him come back and work on it?” Sherlock checked.

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” Indigo agreed. “Would he rather type on the computer, though? That would be faster. Er, if you’d let him use it.”

“Perhaps once I install some more security software,” Sherlock allowed. “I’m not sure I trust them online yet.”

Indigo grimaced at the thought. “Yes, how would they know what to do? They’d be clicking on every pop-up and spam link they saw.”

“Well, I’ll add that to the list of things I’m going to teach them,” Sherlock decided.

Indigo closed the notebook with a thoughtful expression. “So, how are you going to…” He seemed uncertain how to phrase his question. “They just come when you ask for them, right?”

“Generally,” Sherlock nodded. “I presume it’s Hamish sending them out when I say their names. And that he’ll send them out on his own if the situation warrants it, of course.”

“So are we talking once a day for each, or--?”

“Well, Hamish doesn’t like to come out much,” Sherlock explained. “But otherwise it depends on _you_ , since you’ll have to be basically unconscious while they’re here.”

He could see this was the answer Indigo had been hoping for, though why he didn’t just say that was beyond Sherlock. “Well, good.”

“I mean, they’re not going to supplant you,” Sherlock tried to assure him. “I want to test whether you are actually physically taxed when they use your body, though. Sleepy does like to pop up whenever you fall asleep, but I won’t let him do that if it tires you.”

Indigo grinned. “You’re going to have them all properly trained, aren’t you?”

“Is that something _I_ can say?” Sherlock inquired.

“No.”

“Didn’t sound like it.”

Indigo glanced significantly at the laptop so Sherlock set it up while Indigo rearranged them against the pillows. “Okay, they’re all on here, writing in the notebook,” Sherlock reminded him, setting the scene. “Some of them are grouchy, don’t take it personally, they all love you even more than me.”

“Good to know,” Indigo replied with a smirk. Sherlock started the video, which began with Hamish, questioning whether this was even a good idea. Indigo drew in a sharp breath and paused the video after a moment.

“Alright?” Sherlock asked.

“It’s—it’s _me_ , but it’s _not_ me,” Indigo tried to explain, staring at the screen. “He’s so—“ He shook his head and resumed the video.

Hamish looked straight at him. “ _Hello. I’m Hamish, also known as UnderHim. You don’t remember me…_ ”

“This is so weird,” Indigo commented.

“ _He’s going to think you’re difficult_ ,” video-Sherlock complained from off screen.

“ _Well given what he knows about you, he’ll probably understand_ ,” Hamish responded, and Indigo giggled, a slightly strangled sound. Sherlock’s eyes darted over to him and he paused the video as the room it showed darkened from the pulled curtains.

Indigo still stared at the frozen screen. “I’ve never—do you think he acts differently from me?” he asked Sherlock.

He thought the answer ought to be obvious. “Yes.”

“He’s very confident,” Indigo assessed. “He’s got charisma, your eye is just drawn right to him. He’s like a f-----g movie star.”

Sherlock judged that Indigo seemed amazed by this rather than upset. “Yes, that’s accurate, I suppose—“

“But how can that be?” Indigo marveled. “It’s _me_. Same body, same hair, same voice, same clothes—“

“ _You’re_ the movie star,” Sherlock described. “Well, actor, I mean. You become all these different people.”

Indigo scoffed at this. “Not on purpose,” he claimed. “Look at him, I could never—“ He paused on his own.

“Well, alright, he’s got confidence,” Sherlock allowed, as if this wasn’t really all that special, “and he’s brilliant. But I don’t know if you would really like him, he’s a lot like me.”

“I like you.”

“Well, overall, I mean,” Sherlock tried to explain. “Relentless, amoral pursuit of his goals, that sort of thing.” He hoped Indigo wasn’t going to ask for examples.

“I don’t think you’re amoral,” he said instead, pressing into Sherlock more.

“Oh, well.”

“Let’s see some more,” Indigo requested, so Sherlock resumed the video.

In the dim room Hamish moved from the couch to the floor, kneeling at the coffee table, and his body language changed to something much more animalistic and watchful. And grumpy.

“It’s Sleepy!” Indigo recognized. On-screen Sherlock teased him and tried to pat his head. “Oh, you oughtn’t to tease him, he’s so serious,” Indigo chided. The he laughed as the alter told Sherlock not to talk.

“Jamie’s next,” Sherlock warned, and Indigo nodded.

Energy seemed to flood through the body on the screen, going from tense and careful to childlike and carefree. Sherlock heard Indigo take a loud breath but he didn’t pause the video, just watched with rapt attention as Sherlock appeared on screen to guide Jamie back into position and suggested writing topics for him.

“Oh, you’re good with him,” Indigo decided fondly as they watched Jamie write. “You’re so patient. Even if you don’t know what an archaeologist is.” Sherlock rolled his eyes.

At the last moment Sherlock paused the video. “Fury’s next,” he said. Indigo braced himself and Sherlock pressed play. The other man still jumped slightly when Fury stood suddenly and growled at Sherlock.

“How can he be—“ The video was paused again. “He’s so _angry_ , and his _voice_ —“ Indigo rubbed his throat as though it was suddenly sore from Fury’s snarls. “I could never—“ He stopped himself and stared at the screen. “I _have_ been that angry,” he finally said, definitively.

“They’re all parts of you,” Sherlock agreed. “Even Hamish can’t go totally against your wishes.”

They resumed the video. Fury sat grudgingly at Sherlock’s order, made a rude gesture, and refused to write anything.

“ _Don’t be such a baby_ ,” admonished video Sherlock.

“You are playing with fire,” Indigo warned him.

“ _I am Fury. I kill to protect you_ ,” Fury said on the screen. “ _I also kill annoying people_.” For some reason that Sherlock found slightly uncomfortable, Indigo laughed at this.

“— _know your letters, at least_ —“ on-screen Sherlock asked Fury, who finally grabbed the notebook and began to write in it. Sherlock paused the video before Saucy could appear and glanced at Indigo to check on him.

Indigo sighed and leaned his head against Sherlock’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to say about him,” he admitted.

“He just acts tough.”

“He kills people, Sherlock.”

“ _Bad_ people,” Sherlock clarified. “He kills really bad people who hurt you. He’s not going to kill _me_ because I made him sit down and write a note.”

“You seem very certain of this,” Indigo observed. “But what if he just loses his temper? He’s barely got himself under control, he’s spoiling for a fight. You can’t invite him out just to, I dunno, watch a movie or something.”

“That’s the only way he’ll become socialized,” Sherlock argued. “He just doesn’t have much experience with doing non-lethal things.”

Indigo could see he was not going to change Sherlock’s mind on this point. “I would just be very upset if he hurt someone on accident, like you or Mrs. Hudson,” he added quietly.

“I’m sure he knows that.” Sherlock waited a moment. “Do you want to see Saucy now? That will be fun.”

“Yes, alright.” Sherlock resumed the video. It was not difficult to tell when Saucy appeared. Indigo looked slightly shocked, then started to laugh.

“That’s hilarious,” he declared. “It’s like watching a film of yourself drunk that your mates made.”

“Do people do that?”

“Yes,” Indigo promised. “Especially in med school.” Sherlock took his word for that. “Is this the sort of thing you like?” he asked after a moment, carefully.

“What?”

“The really over-the-top, flirtatious, emotional…” In other words, Saucy.

“Well… Not normally,” Sherlock admitted.

“Seems exactly the _opposite_ of what you’d want,” Indigo went on.

“Um… yes, I suppose so,” Sherlock agreed. “But it’s nice to have sometimes, er, as part of you.” He didn’t think he ought to feel guilty about this, since Indigo had given him permission. “It’s like you’re just in a _mood_ ,” he tried to explain.

Indigo paused the video. “In a mood?” he repeated, and Sherlock wondered if that was the wrong thing to say. “Have I ever been in _that_ mood?”

“Well, you _might_ be,” claimed Sherlock, slightly defensive now. “You might be—people call it something—playing a role. For fun.”

“So what you’re saying is,” Indigo proposed slowly, “you might like it if sometimes I acted very flirtatious and seductive, like Saucy.”

“Well, now you don’t have to, because Saucy does.”

Indigo burst out laughing. “Now _that_ was the wrong thing to say,” he informed Sherlock, but fortunately he didn’t seem offended. Instead he turned his head and nuzzled against Sherlock’s cheek. “Well, I’ll have to remember that,” he promised in a low tone, which momentarily made Sherlock forget what they were supposed to be doing in bed. “Hang on, I want to rewind this and watch it again,” Indigo decided.

“ _I’m going to tell him how lovely and sweet you are, but just a bit naughty, too_ ,” Saucy said on-screen, and he and Indigo giggled in an alarmingly similar way.

“Hmm, _suggestions_ ,” Indigo added speculatively, when Saucy mentioned writing him a private note. Sherlock was suddenly not sure he would survive the two of them colluding against him.

“ _He does get demanding, doesn’t he?_ ” Saucy said, looking right into the camera. Indigo seemed to agree.

“He does seem fun,” he allowed to Sherlock. “Happy. Optimistic.”

“Definitely happy now,” Sherlock qualified. He kept thinking about Charlie and Hamish’s descriptions, about Saucy being a tool who performed well but didn’t necessarily like doing it. He hoped the alter wasn’t just doing the same thing with _him_.

“That’s Charlie, hmm?” Indigo asked. “He is obnoxious, isn’t he?”

Sherlock couldn’t argue with that. “I’m hoping he can develop beyond it,” he said confidently.

Indigo grimaced as he watched the alter mock the others’ notes, then his expression softened as he complained about not being as useful, or perhaps appreciated, as the others. “He wouldn’t have been made if he hadn’t been needed,” Indigo murmured.

“Yes.”

“ _It’s like a lunatic superhero team_ ,” Charlie judged of the alters, and Indigo chuckled a little.

“He’s right about that, anyway.”

“Aren’t superhero teams usually lunatics?” Sherlock asked with a frown as Charlie drew in the notebook. “All those tights and masks and funny names. I assumed it was meant to be allegorical.”

“I’m not sure _you_ should really be the one teaching them about modern culture,” Indigo commented dryly. “Ugh, what did you get him _that_ movie for?”

“The salesman recommended it when I asked for something violent, disgusting, and twisted,” Sherlock replied innocently. “He seems happy with it.”

“That’s what worries me.”

Hamish reappeared at the very end of the video, as Sherlock complained to him about the alters’ poor attitudes. “ _They’ll adjust_ ,” he claimed, right before the video ended.

“That’s all?” Indigo asked with some disappointment.

“Do you want me to film them more often?” Sherlock asked. It seemed like a good sign, that Indigo wanted to see more of them.

“Well, if it seems natural,” he hedged. “Like home movies. You don’t know what I mean, do you?” he guessed. Sherlock shook his head. “Well, sometimes,” Indigo repeated. “But not all the time, or if they don’t like it.”

Sherlock folded up the laptop and turned to set it on his nightstand, and Indigo squeezed into his arms, cuddling up against him. Sherlock automatically pulled the blankets up around him. “Alright?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to keep thanking me,” Sherlock told him. “I haven’t forgotten you saying it earlier.” He felt Indigo smile against him. “I’m not letting any of you go, you’re much more interesting than ninety-five percent of the general population.”

“Mmm, you think about five percent of the general population is as, or more, interesting than me?” Indigo rephrased.

“Well, I didn’t want to rule out the possibility,” Sherlock explained, and Indigo chuckled against him.

They lay there in silence for a few minutes. Then Indigo sighed. “I should get up and unpack,” he decided. “See what else needs to be done around here.”

Sherlock disagreed. “You remember having sex with me Sunday night?”

“Of course. Well, it’s like it was last night,” Indigo amended.

“Well, for me it was longer,” Sherlock insisted. “Two and a half days.”

Indigo snorted even as Sherlock nuzzled his neck. “You’ve had sex with at least two alters since then,” he scoffed.

“ _Only_ two,” Sherlock specified, “and obviously, they weren’t _you_.”

“I hope we’ll be able to keep up with you,” Indigo replied, drawing Sherlock up to kiss him.

**

Lestrade rang the doorbell to 221B Baker Street and heard a howling respond from within. He grimaced, imagining Sherlock’s scathing remark when he got upstairs. You could hardly tell Sherlock dogs were just like that. Mrs. Hudson opened the door and gave him a pleasant smile, and Lestrade ascended the stairs, well aware of the route.

He tapped on the flat’s door, then had to tap _again_ after a moment. The dog was still barking inside, and he could hear Sherlock saying something sharply as well. Maybe this would be a short visit.

Finally the door was opened by Indigo—no, not Indigo. With his big, broad smile, glowing eyes, and careless energy, it had to be Jamie. He threw his arms around Lestrade. “Hello, Uncle Greg!”

Greg patted his back. “Hello, Jamie! How are you?”

“I’m alright. I’ve got a new dog!” he exclaimed excitedly.

“So I hear,” Greg replied with a smile.

Jamie let him in and carefully shut the door behind him. “He’s over here!” he said, drawing Greg over to a corner of the flat that had been penned and heavily carpeted with newspaper. Greg had to smile at the small basset hound yapping away inside it, bouncing off the newspaper in his enthusiasm, floppy ears flapping. “Isn’t he wonderful?” Jamie climbed over the barrier easily to scoop the dog up and cuddle him. “I always wanted a dog!”

“A lad should have a dog,” Greg agreed sportingly. “Here, I brought him a present.” He handed over the rawhide chew.

“Thank you!” Jamie said brightly as the dog snuffled it. “Can you say thank you, Monkey?”

“No, the dog cannot say thank you,” Sherlock responded intolerantly, and Greg turned to find him perched in his chair in the opposite corner. “The dog cannot speak English or understand complex sentences!”

Jamie ignored his sour tone. “Oh, who’s a good puppy?” he asked Monkey, and the dog licked his face, much to his delight.

Greg grinned and made his way to the couch to greet Sherlock. “Bit of a change for you, eh?” he teased fondly.

A determined look came over Sherlock’s face. “I will train him,” he predicted, a bit sinisterly Greg thought. “He’s young and shows promise. All he needs is discipline.”

Jamie looked up from where he was sitting on the floor playing tug-of-war with Monkey over the chew. “Monkey’s not been bad, has he?” he worried.

“Indigo assures me his behavior has been perfectly normal,” Sherlock promised. “But he must be trained to know right from wrong. I already told you, I’m not going to be _mean_ to him,” he added, in a slightly insulted tone.

“Oh, I know, Uncle Sherlock,” Jamie said quickly. “Just… do you think he misses me when I’m gone?”

“He certainly _knows_ when you’re gone,” Sherlock judged. “He seems less… excitable.”

This was good enough for Jamie. “Oh, you love me, don’t you, Monkey?” he cooed to the dog.

“Others like him alright, then?” Greg asked curiously.

Sherlock shrugged. “Alright. They haven’t objected to his presence. Mostly Indigo or Jamie deals with him.”

“Oh,” Jamie suddenly remembered from his corner, “Uncle Indigo said I was to offer you biscuits and little sandwiches.” He stood and the dog barked about his feet. “You wait there, Monkey, I’ll be right back, I promise!”

“Wash your hands before touching the food!” Sherlock ordered as he went past.

Greg swore the alter rolled his eyes. “Yes, Uncle Sherlock.”

“Why’d he name the dog Monkey?” Greg wanted to know.

Sherlock waved this off. “No idea, some illogical impulse,” he judged. “Aside from the noise, he’s bearable. I’ve acclimated to the smell and Indigo handles all the biological issues.”

“Convenient.”

Jamie brought in a platter of food, wobbling slightly, and Greg helped him set it down on the coffee table. “What would you like to drink? I’m not allowed to use the stove so I can’t make tea.” He said this a bit pointedly.

“That ban is still in effect,” Sherlock confirmed. He said nothing else, leaving Greg in the dark about what exactly had happened. “You may bring us some lemonade. Monkey!” he said commandingly to the dog. “Cease barking immediately!” Surprising no one but perhaps Sherlock, the dog did not.

“He doesn’t know you’re talking to him, Uncle Sherlock,” Jamie suggested, bringing in two glasses of lemonade.

“I said his name first,” Sherlock agreed. “He should intuit from my admonishing tone that I’m displeased with his current behavior and ameliorate it.”

“What?” Jamie asked in confusion. He knelt down at the coffee table with his drink and began cramming little sandwiches into his mouth.

“Eat more slowly,” Sherlock told him, but his focus was on the dog as he stood and walked over to the pen. He stared down at the creature with his hands on his hips, and Jamie looked over nervously. The little dog leaped and barked even more excitedly.

“Monkey. Monkey!” The dog quieted somewhat. “I am your master,” Sherlock intoned. “I am the leader of your pack. You will obey me.”

“He’s been watching _The Dog Whisperer_ again,” Jamie told Greg, who tried not to laugh.

Sherlock knelt down and patted the dog’s head, even allowing it to lick his hand by way of reward. “Good, Monkey,” he said. “I will continue speaking to you in an upbeat tone, so you will understand I’m pleased with your behavior modification.”

Jamie snickered. “I thought you said he couldn’t understand complex sentences, Uncle Sherlock,” he reminded him innocently.

“He can’t,” Sherlock agreed. “He responds to voice modulation, physical cues, and eye contact.” Satisfied, he stood and started to walk away. The moment his back was turned the dog started to bark again.

Jamie laughed. “He wants me to play with him!” he interpreted, and swooped into the pen, still polishing off some biscuits.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and went to wash his hands. “Don’t feed him any human food,” he ordered.

“Monkey, Monkey, Monkey!” Jamie singsonged, cuddling with the dog.

“Maybe he’ll learn to obey you tomorrow,” Greg suggested helpfully to Sherlock.

**

Sherlock was sitting on the couch skimming through the day’s news online and guessing which bits were Mycroft’s doing when he heard a noise from the bedroom. Monkey, on his bed in the corner, pricked up his ears alertly. It was SleepingHim who emerged, however, and strode purposefully to the windows to check them.

“Hello, Sleepy,” Sherlock said pointedly.

“I must secure the perimeter,” Sleepy claimed, next heading for the door.

“Okay. Don’t bother Mrs. Hudson.”

Sleepy returned a couple minutes later. “The perimeter is secure,” he declared.

“Okay, thank you.” Sherlock expected him to come sit on the couch, but instead the alter went over to stare down at Monkey. They eyed each other for a moment, but Monkey somehow knew this wasn’t a being who did much for him and eventually put his head back down.

“There is a dog,” Sleepy stated.

“Don’t be obtuse, of course there’s a dog,” Sherlock responded, scrolling through a website. “It’s _our_ dog.” Sleepy huffed and finally came to sit on the couch. “Why don’t you like the dog?” Sherlock asked absently. “You could train it as a guard dog or something.”

“ _I_ am the guardian,” Sleepy replied in a proprietary way, and Sherlock turned his attention on him fully, rolling his eyes.

“Well, it’s Jamie’s dog, so don’t do anything to it,” he warned.

“I would not.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, until Sherlock _realized_ they’d been sitting in silence for a few moments and looked over at Sleepy, who was watching Monkey suspiciously. “Why don’t you like the dog?” he repeated.

“I like a cat,” Sleepy told him instead.

His grammar was sometimes elusive to Sherlock. “You like cats better than dogs?” he suggested. “Or you _would_ like a cat?”

“Okay,” SleepingHim agreed with some enthusiasm.

“No, hang on, I’m not _offering_ a cat,” Sherlock clarified, turning to the recalcitrant alter. “This place is enough of a zoo with the dog!” Sherlock did not really see the need for companion animals—they couldn’t even make tea.

Then again, neither could half the alters.

He could see Sleepy was displeased by this declaration, however. “I like a cat,” he repeated stubbornly, drawing his feet up to crouch on the sofa.

“Don’t sit like that, it bothers Indigo’s knees,” Sherlock told him, but Sleepy merely wrapped his arms around his legs defiantly.

“I like an orange cat,” Sleepy mumbled sullenly.

“I don’t care what color the cat is,” Sherlock snapped. He set the laptop safely aside and dared to give Sleepy a very light push. “I told you not to sit like that.”

“Don’t touch!”

“Sit flat, then.” Muttering to himself Sleepy straightened his legs out. “What was that?” Sherlock insisted peevishly.

“I like an orange cat Mrs. Hudson knows,” Sleepy repeated crossly.

“Well, now you’ve lost me completely, Sleepy,” Sherlock sighed, trying to gather up the scattered bits of his patience. “Look, I’m sorry I touched you, but you know sitting like that hurts Indigo’s knees.”

“Doesn’t.”

“Well, he says it does, and I’d think he’d know, wouldn’t he?” Sherlock shot back. “So you mustn’t do it.” Sleepy gave him a sideways glance and lifted his feet to rest them on the coffee table. “Good, thank you.” Indigo actually didn’t like _that_ position either, but that was more about cleanliness or hygiene or something silly instead of physical discomfort, so Sherlock allowed it. “Alright. What are you talking about with the cat? Why should Mrs. Hudson be acquainted with cats?”

“She feeds an orange cat,” Sleepy tried to explain. “In the alley. It’s a nice cat. It hasn’t a home.”

Sherlock sighed, very heavily, as the picture clarified for him. “How lovely of Mrs. Hudson to feed a mangy alley cat,” he responded, and even Sleepy got the sarcasm there. “It’s not coming into the flat. It better not even come into the _building_ ,” he warned.

Sleepy’s expression became very sour. “Jamie got a dog,” he pouted, looking daggers at Monkey.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed shortly. He’d been caught in a moment of weakness, but he wasn’t going to take it back _now_. “Learn to enjoy the dog. We’re not getting any other creatures.”

“I like a cat!” Sleepy huffed, and then he vanished, leaving a slightly disoriented Indigo sitting on the couch.

“Um, what--?” he began, looking around and promptly taking his feet off the coffee table.

“Sleepy, that’s really a dirty thing to do,” Sherlock declared, looking at Indigo.

“No, it’s me, Indigo.”

“I know. But Sleepy was just here, and he woke you up as he left, and that’s not very nice,” Sherlock admonished.

Monkey jumped off his bed and padded over to Indigo. “And I appreciate the sentiment,” Indigo replied, “but there’s no need to shout at me.”

“I’m not shouting at you, I’m shouting at Sleepy.”

“He’s not here,” Indigo had to point out, petting the dog. Sometimes he wondered which of them had been more scrambled by this alternate personality business.

Sherlock huffed at him. “I know he’s not _here_ ,” he claimed. “But I’m sure he’s listening. Or Hamish can pass the message along.”

Indigo blinked in confusion. “And what message is that?”

“That I’m very displeased with his behavior!” The dog barked at Sherlock’s raised voice. “Hush, Monkey. You’ll wake—“ Sherlock looked around. “Oh, I guess it’s just us.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock looked at Indigo’s dubious expression and sighed. “Well, he was being very irritating,” he insisted, in a softer tone. “He doesn’t like the dog, he wants to get a cat.”

“A cat?” Indigo repeated with some surprise.

“Exactly,” Sherlock agreed, taking this for displeasure.

“And you’re against this idea?” Indigo phrased this carefully, but Sherlock turned to stare at him anyway.

“ _You_ don’t want to get a cat, do you?” he asked sharply. “We’ve already got a dog! That’s one more domestic creature than I’d anticipated.”

Indigo gave the dog a hearty rub along his back. “Yes, that was very thoughtful of you, Jamie just loves Monkey,” he said smoothly. “We never had much in the way of pets, growing up.”

Sherlock nodded, acknowledging his generosity in this matter. “And now Sleepy says he wants a cat—in particular, some stray cat Mrs. Hudson’s been feeding,” he went on in disgust. “Which I’m sure she shouldn’t be doing anyway.”

“Oh yes, the orange one?” Indigo commented innocently.

He was not sufficiently disapproving for Sherlock. “ _You’ve_ seen it? How many of you were going to keep this a secret from me?” he accused.

Indigo looked up at him from petting Monkey. “Were you interested in a stray cat?” he asked mildly.

“No.” _Well then_ , said Indigo’s look. “I just think there are too many _beings_ in this flat already,” Sherlock protested.

“Oh, quite right.”

“And don’t dogs and cats hate each other?” He thought he remembered something about that.

“Oh, some don’t get along, but some are alright,” Indigo replied vaguely.

“Well, you’d have to take care of it.”

“Of course.”

“Walk them at different times, if they fight.”

Indigo glanced at him. “Cats don’t have to be walked, Sherlock.”

“Oh. They don’t? What do they do?”

Indigo thought about describing a litter box to Sherlock, then decided against it. “You know, you might actually prefer a cat,” he said instead, “as they tend to be quieter and more self-sufficient than dogs. Very independent.”

“Well, same rules as with the dog,” Sherlock declared. “It’s not sleeping in my bed.”

“No, of course not.” Indigo’s expression became thoughtful. “I think Mrs. Hudson and I could catch it,” he decided, “and I could take it to the vet, make sure it’s had all its shots. Living on the street, it’s probably malnourished. We’ll need different food for it, and a bed, and some toys—“

“Alright, quit bothering me with the details,” Sherlock told him, opening the laptop back up. “Just tell me when it’s here so I don’t step on it.”

“Thank you, Sherlock,” Indigo replied with a smile. “That’s very kind of you.” He moved to kiss him but Sherlock stopped him.

“You let the dog lick your face a moment ago,” he pointed out.

The smile became more of a smirk. “I may have done, yes,” Indigo agreed.

Sherlock gave him a light push back. “Then you’ll need to wash before we can be intimate.”

This made Indigo snicker even as he got up from the couch. “That sounds really so… clinical yet dirty,” he judged.

He disappeared into Sherlock’s bedroom, presumably to use Sherlock’s bathroom, and Sherlock took that as a sign to follow. He set the laptop aside again and glanced back at the dog, who was gazing up at him balefully. “You’ll have to learn to get along with the cat,” he told Monkey, who made a whining noise. Sherlock did not take this to mean the basset hound somehow understood him, however. That would be ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as him agreeing to get a cat in addition to a dog. Sherlock rolled his eyes, mostly at himself. “Go to bed,” he ordered Monkey, then did the same himself.

**

Sherlock was sitting on the couch late one night, again, surfing the news sites, again, when the door to his bedroom opened, again. No one seemed to emerge, though, causing him to pay a bit more attention. Finally someone crawled by on all fours, and Sherlock raised an eyebrow. None of the alters was prone to _crawling_.

“Hello,” he said experimentally. The alter looked over at him and Sherlock thought maybe he seemed familiar. “Sleepy, is that you?”

“Meow,” replied the alter, and crawled on past Sherlock. He sighed and pointed the camera on his phone at the person.

“Are you a cat? Or are you consciously _pretending_ to be a cat?” Sherlock asked. “I’ve not heard of animal alters before—“

“Meow,” said the alter, this time to Monkey, who was lying on his bed. Sherlock imagined he and the dog wore roughly the same expression, especially when the alter nudged Monkey with his head. “Meow.”

“Who do _you_ think it is, Monkey?” Sherlock questioned. The dog harrumphed slightly and put his head back down. Not Jamie or Indigo then, but also not a stranger. He didn’t seem to like Charlie much, Saucy didn’t like _him_ , and it was difficult to imagine Fury acting this way. So either Hamish or Sleepy, albeit in a weird mood. And who was more prone to _those_?

Sherlock followed the alter with his camera as he crawled over to the window and put his hands on the sill, peering out. Then he made sure the windows were locked.

“Aha!” said Sherlock triumphantly. “Sleepy! I knew it was you. What are you playing at?”

Sleepy did not acknowledge him but rather crawled back across the floor into the kitchen, circled the table, then headed for the stairs. Sherlock trailed him, finding this more entertaining than the headlines.

“Meow,” Sleepy repeated, as Sherlock watched him laboriously climb the stairs on his hands and knees.

“You’re pretending to be a cat,” Sherlock stated. “A cat who patrols the perimeter? My research suggests cats don’t really do that,” he countered. “You’d be better off training the dog.”

“Meow,” replied Sleepy stubbornly. He crawled into Indigo’s room, inspected the corners, then climbed up on the bed and looked at Sherlock expectantly.

With a smirk Sherlock sat down on the mattress. “Cats like to be pet, you know,” he warned, reaching out a hand to Sleepy.

The alter dodged it and sat back in a less catlike position. “Don’t touch.”

“Oh, acting human again, are we?” Sherlock noted. He made sure his phone was still recording Sleepy. “What’s this about, then?”

Sleepy smiled suddenly; at least that’s what Sherlock thought he was doing, with his lips stretched back and his teeth displayed. “I like an orange cat,” he said in an upbeat tone.

“You really are demented, aren’t you?” Sherlock judged fondly. “Yes, you got your cat. It’s at the vet now.”

“I must see that Cat is comfortable,” Sleepy went on. His tone suggested this was meant as an explanation.

“You were looking at things from a cat’s point of view?” Sherlock interpreted, and Sleepy nodded. “Well, you’re rather bigger than the cat,” he critiqued, and Sleepy’s expression dropped almost comically to a deep frown. “The cat is more like Monkey’s size, and he seems to get along alright. Speaking of which, I understand cats have a certain smell, which is more likely what the dog—“

Too late, he realized how offended Sleepy was becoming, and the alter summarily turned his back on Sherlock, crossing his arms over his chest and lifting his chin in the air. It looked so ridiculously childish on Indigo that Sherlock chuckled, which only upset Sleepy more. Quickly Sherlock stopped recording and put the phone away, before he got himself into more trouble. Indigo did not like it when he upset the alters, no matter how ridiculous they were being.

“Sleepy,” he cajoled. “Come on, Sleepy. Hey, you’re getting a cat! That’s lovely, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Sleepy agreed warily, glancing back at Sherlock over his shoulder.

He felt this was progress. “Er, where’s the cat going to sleep?” What salient factors could one ask about a cat, anyway?

“Here, I think,” Sleepy decided. Finally he faced Sherlock, though he hopped off the bed and paced around the room. “I will make a nice box.”

Sleeping in a box did not sound very comfortable to Sherlock, but whatever. “Are you sure Indigo wants the cat sleeping in his room?” he checked.

Sleepy faced him with an expression Sherlock wished he’d recorded. “It’s _my_ room,” he asserted.

“Er, well, you have to share.” Seven people all in one small room—with one bed—was probably in violation of a housing code somewhere. Good thing they all occupied one body.

“This will be Cat’s floor,” Sleepy decided. “Down there is Dog’s floor.”

“Whatever,” Sherlock tossed off, bored with this topic. “I’m sure you can work out those details with Indigo. As long as the cat doesn’t hang out in _my_ room.” Sleepy, he was certain, rolled his eyes at this rule. “What are you going to name the cat?” he asked, trying to keep the alter engaged.

Sleepy turned as if to pounce—arms raised, fingers curled into claws, body lifted on his toes. “ _CAT!_ ” he said dramatically.

Sherlock blinked at him, unimpressed. “Yes, I know, Sleepy,” he replied slowly, trying to keep hold of his patience. “You’re getting a cat, and that’s very exciting. What are you going to call it?” This alter had definite childlike tendencies, no doubt stemming from when he was made; even allowing for that, Sherlock found him impossibly obtuse sometimes.

Sleepy looked like he was thinking the same thing about Sherlock. “I just said,” he claimed, going back to a normal posture. “ _CAT!_ ” He repeated the frozen pounce.

Sherlock’s mind worked quickly, even in murky waters like this. Though occasionally, he still rammed an iceberg. “Do you mean,” he began, hoping this wasn’t true, “you want to call the cat… Cat?”

“No, not Cat,” Sleepy insisted in a disdainful tone. “ _CAT!_ ” Frozen pounce.

Sherlock really wished he’d left the video recording on at this point. “Sorry?”

“No, _CAT!_ ”

“Cat?”

Sleepy heaved a massive sigh, like _he_ was the one who needed to exercise patience, not Sherlock. He pulled out the blue notebook that Sherlock had provided for the alters’ use and turned to a fresh page, writing something in it. Then he turned it around for Sherlock to see.

Written on the page in large letters was the word CAT, all caps, underlined, with an exclamation point. Sherlock had a bad feeling about this and took the book.

“Okay, and that’s different from _this_?” He wrote Cat on the page, capitalizing only the first letter and adding no extra marks.

“Yes, very different,” Sleepy agreed. “ _CAT!_ Cat. _CAT!_ Cat. _CAT!_ Cat—“ For each example of the all-caps version, he pretended to pounce.

“Okay, I see,” Sherlock interrupted. “Well, as fascinating as it is to contemplate a name involving tone, posture, and punctuation marks—“ Sleepy got bored and checked the window in Indigo’s room. “As fascinating as that is,” Sherlock repeated, hurriedly following Sleepy out the door and down the stairs, “I really don’t think it’s very practical.”

“Is not practical,” Sleepy agreed readily, making the rest of his rounds. “Is a cat.”

“Yes.” Sherlock had no idea what he meant. “Okay, well, the dog is named Monkey, so I suppose a cat named Cat actually makes _more_ sense—“

“Not Cat. _CAT!_ ” Sleepy corrected. In the middle of the living room he stood on his toes and curved his arms up. The moment stretched out awkwardly and he teetered slightly.

Indigo had politely suggested to Sherlock once that he might want to consider whether a point was really worth arguing over, before doing so. It might save him frustration, Indigo said. Sherlock appreciated the thought.

So far, however, he had yet to find any of these so-called minor points.

“Sleepy! You can call it Cat if you want, but the rest of us aren’t going around shouting and making a ridiculous full-body gesture every time we mention the cat!” Sherlock pronounced.

Sleepy gave him a narrow look. “You will not allow _CAT!_?”

“I will not allow you to call it _CAT!_ , no.” Sherlock made a half-hearted arm movement.

“You didn’t say it right,” Sleepy muttered sullenly.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and went back to the couch, ready for a dose of reality instead. “Go secure the perimeter,” he dismissed, and Sleepy left the flat, still muttering to himself.

**

Indigo was eating breakfast when Sherlock saw him next—sausage, seemingly to defy the stereotype he and Hamish had made of him. Sherlock let this thought bob around in his head for a while, buoyed by tea and half-eaten toast, as he tried to recover from sleeping. He thought maybe Indigo was saying things to him, but the man should know not to take his answers seriously if they consisted of only one syllable, which was all Sherlock was capable of right now.

“—and I’ll call the vet to check on the cat, maybe pick up a few things for it at the store today,” he went on, growing more lucid to Sherlock’s ears. “That reminds me, Sleepy wrote me a rather odd note last night.” He pulled the blue notebook from his pocket and Sherlock propped his head up on his fist as the present returned to focus. Indigo found the page and frowned at it. “Of course, his notes are often odd,” he allowed, skimming it again.

“Yes. He seems underdeveloped, mentally.”

Indigo’s lips twitched. “Well, good morning to you, finally,” he replied.

Sherlock frowned. “Is that what Sleepy wrote?”

“Uh, no. He seems to be upset,” Indigo described, “because you won’t let him name the cat what he wants?” Here he gave Sherlock a somewhat reproving look.

“Does he say what he wants to name the cat?” Sherlock asked innocently.

“Um… no. I don’t think so,” Indigo admitted, trying to parse the note again. He glanced at Sherlock. “Was it inappropriate?” Jamie, as a typical ten-year-old boy, had once proposed calling the dog Booger.

Sherlock’s tone became deeply derisive. “He wanted to name the animal _CAT!_ ” he revealed, lifting his arms in the pouncing gesture.

“Cat?” Indigo repeated faintly.

“No, Indigo,” Sherlock corrected condescendingly (knowingly over the top, at least). He stood and did the full move. “ _CAT!_ ”

Indigo started to laugh. “What?”

“It’s the whole thing,” Sherlock told him, trying to keep a straight face. “He was very serious about it. Not just Cat but _CAT!_ Gestures and everything.”

“He’s such a nutter,” Indigo declared, still laughing.

“Oh, I’ve got video of him crawling around here last night, pretending to be a cat,” Sherlock remembered, and Indigo laughed harder.

“That’s so cute,” he claimed. “But shall we just call the cat, er, Cat, with less emphasis?”

Sherlock didn’t really care, of course. “I suppose. I’m not breaking into a dance move whenever I talk about the creature, at least.” Although maybe it would be worth it, the way it made Indigo laugh.

**

“You’re gonna lose,” Charlie predicted in a singsong tone.

“No, I’m not,” Sherlock countered sharply, looking over the chessboard intently. He made a move decisively.

Charlie, who was a master of the psychological game if not the strategic one, hummed brightly in a way that probably unnerved lesser minds. He moved his own piece. Then it was Sherlock’s turn, then Charlie’s, then Sherlock’s, then suddenly Charlie’s piece surged ahead and knocked Sherlock’s aside. “Checkmate!” he declared gleefully, with his hooting laugh.

Sherlock stared at the board dumbfounded, reviewing the game in his mind. “That’s not—How did you do that?” he demanded of Charlie.

The alter grinned like a shark. “Secret strategy,” he claimed.

“Tell me!” Sherlock insisted, even though no one _ever_ told their secret strategy when they’d just won a game of chess. Well, only if they were a genius whose flaw was craving an audience—Sherlock was not yet sure if Charlie fell into that category or not.

“Well, alright,” Charlie agreed, without much resistance. “The secret is… I cheated.”

Sherlock stared at him. “What?”

“I cheated,” Charlie shrugged, unashamed. “I moved a couple pieces around when you weren’t looking.” He demonstrated what he’d done—a subtle switch that nonetheless changed the entire layout of the board, now that Sherlock saw it.

“Why didn’t I notice that?” he muttered to himself.

Charlie was more matter-of-fact than smug now. “Eh, you weren’t looking for it,” he explained. “Didn’t think I’d bother to cheat in a friendly game of chess.”

Sherlock sensed there was something serious underlying this. “Why _did_ you cheat, then?” he wanted to know. “It’s really not fair.”

“Aha,” Charlie replied, as though Sherlock had hit upon something important. “What’s fair depends entirely on what you have to lose.”

Sherlock frowned. “But it was just a friendly game,” he repeated. “You wouldn’t have lost anything.”

“That’s why I’m telling you about it,” Charlie clarified. “Not really used to friendly games, you know. Usually I’ve got a lot at stake.” He grinned darkly.

“Point taken,” Sherlock agreed, starting to put the chess pieces away. “But I won’t play games with you if you cheat.” Which would be a shame; of the alters only Jamie and Charlie enjoyed board and card games, and Jamie’s taste ran more towards Snakes & Ladders—not very sophisticated.

“Well, how about, I’ll cheat in a different way each time,” Charlie offered, “and you see if you can catch me.”

Sherlock found this a pleasing compromise. “Alright. That could be fun.”

One of the chess pieces fell to the floor with a clatter, and Monkey popped up from beside the fireplace to investigate. “Grab that before the dog does,” Sherlock instructed Charlie, who finally did so. “The black castle already has teeth marks on it. These are not your toys, Monkey,” Sherlock told the basset hound in a stern tone. With a huff the dog went back to the warmth of his bed.

“So, about this zoo we’ve got now…” Charlie began, lounging in his chair. With one dismissive gesture he took in both the dog and the cat, who was curled on a special ledge extending from the windowsill.

“Yes, it’s more than I’d imagined I would have,” Sherlock admitted. “Though Cat has been less trouble than I feared. Once we established some ground rules.” No scratching the furniture, doorframes, or dog, for example.

“What if everyone wants one, though?” Charlie mused in a light tone. “Let’s see, Fury would want a wolf or a lion, I suppose. And Saucy would want a sheep,” he added naughtily.

“Don’t be tasteless,” Sherlock warned. A rude joke was one thing; but Saucy’s reaction when Sherlock had mentioned getting a pet led him to believe it was not really a joke. “It was a horrible experience for him.” Which Sherlock did not really need to know the details of.

Charlie sneered a bit in response to the chiding. “Well, I want a lizard, then,” he declared.

“What? Are you serious?” Sherlock could never tell with him.

“Yeah, I’m serious,” Charlie claimed. “Always wanted a pet lizard.”

Charlie had a warped sense of humor; but Sherlock sometimes thought he phrased things as a joke, so if they were challenged he could dismiss them with a laugh and act like it hadn’t hurt.

Okay, Indigo had told him that.

“Do people have lizards as pets?” Sherlock asked curiously.

“Sure, there’s all kinds,” Charlie said casually. “They live in a big tank, like a fish tank only without water, and you can take them out and play with them sometimes.”

“Oh. That sounds reasonable,” Sherlock decided. “Better than a cat or dog, anyway. At least you can put it away in a box at the end of the day.” He was thinking darkly of all the times he’d found Cat curled up in an unexpected spot in the middle of the night, such as his closet floor or on top of his Petri dishes.

“You’d let me have one?” Charlie asked suspiciously.

“Well, you’d better ask Indigo,” Sherlock decided. “He’ll be taking care of it when you’re not around. And Mrs. Hudson.”

“Coo, you’re a soft touch,” Charlie judged with a smirk. Sherlock thought he seemed pleased, though. “Thought I’d have to bat my eyes and stick out my lip, maybe work the trouser snake a little,” he added obnoxiously.

Sherlock rolled his eyes at his crudeness. “Indigo and I will be doing research on pet lizards,” he warned. “The idea may still be vetoed. Do they make noise? Do they smell?”

“Not more than what we’ve already got,” Charlie insisted. “Plus, if we don’t like it—they’re edible.” He hooted with laughter.

**

“So you’ve got a dog named Monkey, a cat named Cat, and now a—what is it again?” Lestrade asked, barely suppressing a smirk.

“It’s a bearded dragon,” Sherlock told him seriously, flipping through the crime scene photos, “named Alexander the Great. I’m told the name is merely decorative, though, they don’t actually respond to it.”

“Monkey, Cat, and Alexander the Great,” Lestrade repeated with amusement. “Not exactly harmonious.”

“What do you expect, they were named by different people,” Sherlock pointed out.

**

Sherlock flung some papers over his shoulder in the bedroom, then stomped into the kitchen to rummage loudly through a drawer. Sometimes, this allowed him to find what he was looking for in whatever random place Indigo had chosen to store it. Other times, the noise and chaos he was creating brought Indigo running, so Sherlock could just make _him_ produce the desired object. Oddly, neither solution was apparent today, even though Indigo was, he discovered, just sitting on the couch in the living room.

“Indigo!” Sherlock resorted to summoning. No response. Had he zoned out? Rolling his eyes Sherlock went to check, but stopped when he saw that Cat was sitting on his lap, purring loudly as he was pet. Only Sherlock wasn’t sure it was Indigo’s lap he was sitting on.

In fact, he wasn’t sure at first glance _whose_ lap it was, especially since it was still daylight—unlikely to be Sleepy then, as proprietary as he was about the animal. Carefully Sherlock walked around and sat in his chair, automatically bringing out his camera phone.

“Hello,” he began. No acknowledgement. “Do you like the cat?” Stupid remark, but he hoped a question might elicit some response. It didn’t. “The cat seems to like _you_.”

Experimentally Sherlock reached out as if he, too, was going to pet the cat (perish the thought), only he was stopped by a growl—and not from the cat. Dark blue eyes, dangerous and angry, met his. “Fury?” he sputtered in surprise.

“Don’t bother Cat,” he ordered, in a raspy voice.

Sherlock sat back, thinking rapidly. “Mm, you know, Sleepy is very fond of the cat, so it wouldn’t do for something to happen to it,” he warned. He could imagine a lot of bad things occurring to a small animal that had attracted Fury’s attention.

The alter went back to gazing at the cat, delicately stroking the short fur of its nose. “I would not hurt Cat,” he asserted. Indeed, Sherlock thought perhaps he seemed a little less tense, a little less ready to burst into murderous rage.

“Cats can be irritating sometimes, though,” Sherlock pointed out. “Like when they dig their claws into your leg. Which they do even when they’re happy, by the way.” Learned that one the hard way.

“That is what cats do,” Fury said simply.

“Okay. So, you’re not going to hurt the cat?” Sherlock checked. He wanted to get this on the record.

Fury gave him a look which suggested Cat was not the one most in danger of being hurt right now. “I. Told. You,” he snarled. “You upset Cat,” he added, as the animal opened its eyes and stopped purring quite so loudly.

“Okay,” Sherlock agreed. “You just go ahead and enjoy the cat, then. That’s nice. I’m glad you like it. You’re not going to hurt the dog or lizard, either, right?”

Fury took a deep breath as if trying to calm himself—which seemed significant, since Fury didn’t normally seem too worried about being calm. He gave Sherlock an unyielding stare. “I have not. I will not. I defend against enemies. Not pets.”

“Alright, just checking,” Sherlock insisted. He switched off the camera phone. “Have you seen my motorized pestle?”

“No.” Sherlock blinked at him. Okay, Fury himself hadn’t seen it, but he could ask around, since he was occupying the body of the person Sherlock would normally ask. After a moment Fury tipped his head to the side. “UnderHim says it’s in the drawer under the toaster.”

“Ah. Thank you.” Sherlock went off to retrieve his instrument and left Fury with the cat.

**

“Mama. Mama. Mama.” Sherlock peered around the edge of his newspaper, rolled his eyes, and pulled out his camera phone, aiming it squarely at Sleepy. The alter was kneeling on the floor in front of the cat, gazing at him earnestly. “Mama. Mama,” Sleepy repeated, as Cat stared at him serenely.

“Sleepy, are you trying to teach the cat to talk?” Sherlock guessed. That was, sadly, the most sensible explanation he could come up with.

The alter shot him a look. “Don’t interfere,” he ordered, then refocused on the cat. “Mama. Mama.”

“Meow,” said Cat.

Sleepy beamed at him, gathering the animal up to cuddle it. “Good kitty!” he praised effusively.

“Sleepy, that’s what the cat _always_ says,” Sherlock tried to tell him, then wondered why he bothered.

“Smart kitty!” Sleepy cooed, shooting Sherlock a dark glare.

Sherlock turned the camera on the dog, who sat at his feet. “Do you believe this, Monkey?” he asked derisively, and the dog snorted. “How about you, Alexander?” he questioned, zooming in on the glass tank in the corner. The large lizard flicked out his tongue and licked his own eyeball. “Exactly!” Sherlock proclaimed. “It’s ridic—oh, G-d, I’m talking to the animals,” he realized with a defeated sigh.

“Ha, ha,” mocked Sleepy from the floor, and Sherlock turned off the camera and went back to his newspaper.

**

Sherlock was in his room finishing his notes on an experiment when a yelp followed up by a thunderous crash brought him hurrying out. The living room was in chaos—a bookcase had tipped over, flinging its contents everywhere. Monkey was howling in alarm, and Jamie stood off to the side, looking aghast.

Sherlock could well guess what had happened. “Jamie! What the h—l did—“

At the sound of his raised voice Jamie whipped around, guilt coloring his expression. Then suddenly, he vanished.

The body staggered at the unexpected loss of direction and Sherlock jumped to catch it, only to find himself grabbing Fury, who grabbed back.

“What did you do to Jamie?” he snarled. He wasn’t _hurting_ Sherlock, but the other man would not have found it easy to pull away, either.

“Nothing!” Sherlock asserted. “Are you hurt? The body, I mean—Monkey, shut up!”

“Jamie is upset,” Fury growled.

“Jamie nearly knocked a d—n bookcase over on himself!” Sherlock snapped in return. “Probably climbing it again, I’ve told him—Look, are you hurt?”

Fury finally let Sherlock go so he could check himself. “No,” he decided.

Monkey had no immediately visible injuries either, so that was—“S—t,” Sherlock swore. “Where’s the cat?”

Fury’s eyes widened. “Lift the bookcase,” he suggested, and between the two of them they righted it.

Then they started digging through the mess on the floor. “No sign of a squashed cat,” Sherlock decided with some relief.

As soon as this was determined the body gave a shake and turned into Charlie, who dashed over to the lizard’s tank. “Alexander? Are you okay?”

“He’s on the other side of the room,” Sherlock pointed out sharply. “Do you see the cat?”

“I think he’s just going to hide under his log for a bit,” Charlie announced, presumably of the lizard.

“Come here, Monkey,” Sherlock told the dog, kneeling on the floor. “Are you alright? Did anything hit you?” The dog barked, which Sherlock didn’t know how to interpret, but he didn’t shy away when Sherlock patted him down.

“Cat! Cat! Where is Cat?” This frantic cry came from Sleepy, even though it was broad daylight. Sherlock was starting to get whiplash. “I think Cat is under the couch,” Sleepy suggested, kneeling down to peer under it. This did not calm him. “Cat won’t fit! We have to—“ He made as if to lift the couch on his own, which surely wasn’t a good idea.

“Sleepy, wait—“ Sherlock told him, jumping to his feet.

Suddenly Sleepy straightened up and backed away from the couch. “What the f—k is going on?”

Sherlock was immensely relieved by this new appearance, even if the alter sounded irritable. “Hamish! We’re looking for the cat, might be under the couch—Jamie knocked over the bookcase—“

At that moment Mrs. Hudson popped in. “What’s all this—oh, dear,” she commented, seeing the mess.

“Shut the door,” Sherlock instructed, readying himself at the couch. “The cat might get out. Alright?” Hamish nodded and together they tipped the couch towards one end. An orange blur raced out with a yowl, skittered across the kitchen floor, and dashed through the open door into Sherlock’s bedroom. “Oh, wonderful,” he remarked sarcastically. “Monkey, move!” The dog was very interested in investigating the new world under the couch, whereas Sherlock rather wanted to set it back down.

“Here, come on, Monkey,” Mrs. Hudson coaxed, pulling the dog away.

“Alright, down,” Hamish directed, and they were finally relieved of their burden.

“I’ll go look for Cat, probably under the bed, poor thing,” Mrs. Hudson volunteered.

“He might be hurt,” Sherlock warned. Then he turned to Hamish, not even sure what to say.

Hamish seemed a bit confused himself. “Sorry, everyone’s—rather agitated,” he reported, frowning as though this pained him somehow. Sherlock imagined half a dozen voices all shouting in his head at once—that _would_ be painful.

“You’re not hurt?” Sherlock checked again, not really trusting Fury’s assessment.

Hamish took a moment to really think about it. “No, we’re alright,” he judged.

“Was Jamie climbing the bookcase again?” Sherlock demanded. “I’ve told him not to do that! Why didn’t you stop him?” This was not exactly the conversation he’d looked forward to having with Hamish the next time he appeared.

“I am not—“ Hamish stopped, took a breath, and refocused on Sherlock, who didn’t really care if he was angry at the accusation. “No, you’re right,” he agreed unexpectedly. “Jamie knew he shouldn’t do it, but he was feeling very willful, and I was thinking about something else instead of paying attention to him,” he admitted.

“Well—alright,” Sherlock replied awkwardly. “Why was Fury here?”

“Oh, they’re _all_ worked up,” Hamish described. “Jamie’s upset, and when he got scared and left, Fury came in automatically, thinking there was a threat.”

Sherlock frowned. “Why would Jamie be _scared_?”

Hamish blinked at him, then started picking up some fallen books. “He’s used to being _beaten_ for doing something bad, Sherlock,” he replied dryly.

“I would never hurt Jamie!”

“I know, but he was just acting on instinct.” Hamish grimaced as he picked up a DVD that had escaped from its case and gotten scratched. “Well, that’s ruined,” he sighed, setting it aside.

“You don’t have to do that,” Sherlock dismissed, still thinking over Jamie’s reaction.

“Who _else_ is going to?” Hamish pointed out. “Anyway, then Charlie wanted to check his lizard and Sleepy panicked about the cat. I had to jump in and take charge.”

“That’s not going to hurt Indigo, is it?” Sherlock wanted to know.

“I don’t think so. Very nice of you to let them have pets, by the way,” he added, as though he didn’t really care much himself. Carefully he unbent some pages from one of Saucy’s notebooks and pressed them flat between the covers.

“Look, put that down,” Sherlock told him. “Now you’re here, I want to show you what I’ve been working on—“ He took Hamish’s hand, heading towards the kitchen.

“The new protein separation matrix?” Hamish asked. “Yes, I’ve been watching. You’ve been very clever.”

“Good, I won’t have to explain from the beginning,” Sherlock decided. “See if you have any ideas about the isoelectric—“

Hamish resisted his pull lightly. “I’m sorry, Sherlock, I can’t stay,” he revealed delicately.

This disappointed Sherlock greatly. “What? Why not?” It was very difficult to persuade Hamish to appear, and Sherlock enjoyed talking to him.

It was hard to tell if Hamish felt the same way. “I’ve got to go back and sort out the others,” he explained. “Make sure they’re alright. How’s the cat?”

Sherlock did not see what was so important about the cat, obviously it was alive and mobile. But Mrs. Hudson stuck her head out of the bedroom and replied cheerfully, “Oh, I think Cat is just fine. He came out from under the bed for some tinned food, and he doesn’t seem to be limping or anything.”

“Alright, good.” Hamish turned back to Sherlock, who was still holding his hand. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ll send Indigo back, and later I’ll send a message about Jamie, alright?”

“Well, no, it’s _not_ alright—“

Indigo stood there before him, blinking with some disorientation. “What’s not alright?” he wanted to know, squeezing Sherlock’s hand. “Is it three already? I thought Jamie was—“ He looked around the room and saw the mess. “What happened?”

“It’s been chaos, utter chaos!” Sherlock complained, whirling away from him.

“Hush, Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson chided, leaving the bedroom. “Cat is still rather skittish.” She looked down at the mess on the floor and shook her head, then bent to pick something up.

“Oh, no, it’s alright, Mrs. Hudson,” Indigo rushed to tell her. “I’ll clean it up.”

“She _is_ the housekeeper,” Sherlock pointed out, still peevish about the whole thing.

“Maybe you could make us some tea,” Indigo suggested to her instead. “Seems like we could use some.”

“Oh, alright, dear,” Mrs. Hudson agreed. “I’ll be right back with some cheese and biscuits.” Sherlock huffed loudly at the pointlessness of this.

As soon as the door shut behind her Indigo turned on Sherlock. “What on Earth happened?”

“Jamie was climbing the bookcase again,” Sherlock replied, toeing some of the mess on the floor. Indigo hurried to pick it up before he could make it worse. “He knocked it over completely, ghastly noise. As soon as I came in he popped off and Fury appeared. Then Charlie wanted to check the lizard and Sleepy was looking for the cat, and Hamish had to come in and shove them all back.”

“Goodness,” Indigo commented dryly. “No one was hurt, I guess?” He shooed Monkey away from nosing Jamie’s spilled bucket of crayons.

“The cat may have been psychologically traumatized,” Sherlock judged, unconcerned about this. “Do you feel alright? Not—tired, or anything?”

“Somewhat tired of my body doing things without permission,” Indigo sighed, chasing some crayons under the desk, “especially bloody stupid things like climbing a bookcase. You’ve told him not to do that, haven’t you?”

“Of course. Hamish said he was feeling willful today,” Sherlock reported. “Oh, _and_ , Hamish said he, Hamish, was thinking about something else, and not paying attention to stop Jamie in time.” Indigo looked up at this, and Sherlock’s gleaming eyes. “Fascinating, isn’t it? How autonomous they are?”

“Terrifying, more like,” Indigo grumbled. “I’d been hoping _someone_ was in charge, even if it wasn’t _me_.”

The door opened and Mrs. Hudson came in with the tea tray. “Now here’s what we need, dears,” she proclaimed, setting it down. “A nice cuppa.”

“Come have some tea,” Sherlock instructed Indigo. With some reluctance the slave left his clean-up duties and joined Sherlock on the couch.

“I’m afraid some of the things are ruined,” Indigo admitted.

“I’ll replace them, don’t worry about it,” Sherlock dismissed.

“Just things, dear,” Mrs. Hudson advised sagely. “Lucky no one was hurt! Especially Jamie, the little scamp.”

“Oh, here comes Cat, he looks alright,” Indigo noted as the cat emerged and rubbed up against his legs. “Poor thing.” Cat, ever savvy, took advantage of his sympathy and jumped up on the couch, pushing his way onto Indigo’s lap and trying to sniff at his plateful of biscuits. Prudently Indigo moved them, making room for the cat.

“Anyway, I’m sorry—“ Sherlock made a noise. Indigo was not supposed to apologize for what the alters did, they’d had many discussions about that. “—sorry that you had to deal with it alone,” he amended quickly.

“Oh, Hamish was here,” Sherlock reminded him.

“Yes. There’s that.”

Obtuse though he sometimes was about these things, Sherlock nonetheless detected a note of coolness in Indigo’s tone. “He was only here for a few minutes,” Sherlock added quickly. “He had to go back and get the others in line.” Indigo was, he thought, slightly irrational to be jealous of Hamish, but he tried to be sensitive to it anyway. “Really didn’t even need him, it’s just that the others were panicking a bit.”

“Were you able to show him your protein experiment, dear?” Mrs. Hudson asked, to Sherlock’s horror. “You were so keen on him see—“

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson!” Sherlock interrupted sharply.

Indigo rolled his eyes and set his teacup aside, then tried to gently dislodge the cat, who meowed in protest. “I’ll finish cleaning up,” he decided.

**

Sherlock was not surprised to see Sleepy emerge from the bedroom after Indigo had fallen asleep that night. However, he ignored Sherlock’s greeting and went straight upstairs, not even doing his perimeter check first. Sherlock followed and rolled his eyes when he found him sitting on Indigo’s bed, cuddling the cat.

“Poor Cat,” Sleepy said sadly.

“He’s alright, isn’t he?” Sherlock checked. He’d seen nothing amiss himself.

“He was so scared!” Sleepy empathized.

“I’m sure,” Sherlock agreed without much interest, sitting down next to him on the bed.

“You may touch Cat,” Sleepy offered generously.

Sherlock generally tried to restrict himself to only the most essential contact when it came to the animals. “Mmm, I’ll designate you as my proxy in that matter,” he decided quickly. “Did Hamish get everything sorted out in there?”

“Jamie was so scared, too!” Sleepy reported. “UnderHim says Jamie says he’s sorry he was bad.”

“Well, you tell him I’m glad he wasn’t hurt,” Sherlock instructed, “but it was a naughty thing to do, and some of the things were broken.” Sleepy nodded. “And also tell him that I would never hurt him, even if I was angry at him, so he doesn’t need to run away.”

“He knows,” Sleepy claimed. “He just forgot. We all know.”

“Well, good.”

“UnderHim said to tell you Jamie must be punished, though,” Sleepy went on, scritching Cat assiduously.

Sherlock’s eyes widened. “Punished? Well, I don’t know about _that_ —“ Punishment was not something he really enjoyed doling out.

“UnderHim says he must,” Sleepy repeated definitively. That was the final word in _his_ opinion, obviously. “UnderHim says, Jamie should help Mrs. Hudson with the cleaning for the next two weeks. Oh, UnderHim also says to ask Mrs. Hudson first if this is okay.”

Sherlock frowned. “Two weeks with Mrs. Hudson? That doesn’t sound like much of a punishment,” he protested. “How much does she actually _do_? Unless my experiments are involved,” he added with some bitterness, not having forgotten the loss of his mold some weeks ago.

Sleepy took this statement at face value and passed it back to Hamish, then waited for the response. “UnderHim says, Mrs. Hudson does much, and Jamie will find it suitably tedious.”

Jamie’s hours were Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from two to three, and variable time on Saturday or Sunday depending on what activity was planned. “Weren’t we doing something on Saturday?” Sherlock remembered vaguely. He of course was not the one who did the planning.

“UnderHim says, you and Jamie were going to the Natural History Museum to look at the dinosaurs,” Sleepy conveyed.

“Oh, right. Pointless, looking at _extinct_ animals, isn’t it?” Sherlock opined. “Er, those _are_ the ones that are extinct, right?”

“Don’t know,” Sleepy said without concern. “UnderHim says, if Jamie is good during the week with cleaning, you can still do that, because he is very excited.”

“Oh, well.”

“Cat, I must leave you now,” Sleepy said regretfully to the animal, gently pushing it from his lap. “I’m glad you’re safe!” Sherlock rolled his eyes and moved before the cat could contemplate sitting on _him_ next. “I will secure the perimeter, then Charlie wants to check on Alexander. Then maybe I will come back.”

“Okay, Sleepy,” Sherlock acknowledged, even though he seemed to be speaking more to Cat. “See you later.”

**

Mycroft heard barking and rolled his eyes, wondering why he had allowed his brother to bring his dog—Sherlock’s dog!—to his country home for the weekend. Mycroft supposed he’d been so shocked that Sherlock _wanted_ to come that he’d not really listened properly to the rest, something about the chance to run around on the lawn, where his staff would no doubt be picking up messes for the next week. So far the dog had certainly done a lot of running and barking, and Indigo had run around right behind him—suspiciously joyful, Mycroft assessed, always on the lookout for the unusual. Sherlock doted on the slave though—he’d allowed him a dog, a cat, _and_ a lizard—so perhaps joy was the natural response.

When Mycroft found Indigo he was sitting on the floor in the side hallway, playing tug of war with the dog and an old sock. Sherlock was nowhere to be seen and probably off getting himself into trouble without anyone to supervise him, even a slave.

“Indigo,” Mycroft summoned, a bit sharply, and the slave looked up suddenly. “Come with me.”

He hesitated, infuriatingly. “Oh—um…” He glanced at the dog.

“I’m sure you can leave the beast for a few minutes,” Mycroft told him pointedly. “Meadows! See that he doesn’t destroy anything,” he added to his own slave, who hovered nearby.

Mycroft started to walk away, realized that Indigo was not following, and turned back to give him a look. Quickly Indigo scrambled up from the floor. “This is really unacceptable behavior, Indigo,” he judged, once they were on their way to his office.

“Er, the dog?” Indigo guessed obtusely.

“It has to do with the dog, yes,” Mycroft agreed. “I don’t know how or why you persuaded my brother to allow domestic animals into his life, but they have clearly diverted you from what _should_ be your primary focus.” Mycroft took a chair behind his desk. “Don’t sit,” he snapped when Indigo tried to do so. “My brother may indulge you, but I will not.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow at this unexpectedly servile response. In fact the man’s whole attitude was off—he seemed downright nervous. Well, maybe that was as it _ought_ to be. “As we have discussed before, Indigo, Sherlock has many enemies. Very clever enemies who are always looking for any weakness they can exploit to hurt him. I suppose I can see where you might’ve thought a dog would be a useful defensive weapon,” Mycroft pontificated, “but a basset hound? He certainly doesn’t strike me as very fierce.”

“No, I guess not,” Indigo agreed. “Monkey isn’t very fierce. But he’s terribly clever, and a very good dog!”

He smiled, but it faded quickly when Mycroft just stared at him. “I must say I’m very disappointed in you, Indigo,” he assessed severely.

“Oh.”

“Have you become so complacent in recent months that you would abandon your duty to Sherlock for the sake of a _pet_? That disturbs me greatly,” Mycroft announced challengingly. “I thought you were a strong individual who had faced, and overcome, much adversity. You are not behaving like the John Watson whose record I studied.”

Indigo looked suddenly confused. “Johnny? Do you know Johnny?”

Mycroft blinked at him. “What?”

“You said John Watson,” Indigo clarified, or not, his voice trailing away at Mycroft’s stare.

“Yes, I’m sure you’re unaccustomed to hearing that name,” Mycroft allowed, becoming increasingly uneasy. Slaves had certainly been known to go mad before, and this one had been through some difficult times, to put it mildly. “Nonetheless, I had judged that you were sufficiently skilled to help and even protect my brother to some degree. Yet I find you playing with that dog constantly, instead of keeping an eye on Sherlock, which is where your principle loyalty should—“

“I don’t want Uncle Sherlock to get hurt!” Indigo burst out, starting to cry. Mycroft stared at him in astonishment. “I was just playing with Monkey, Uncle Sherlock said I could, and I love him so much! But I love Uncle Sherlock, too. I’m sorry!” He began to sob in earnest.

Mycroft literally had no idea what was going on, and for once didn’t mind when his office door was thrust open without warning. “Have you seen Indigo, the dog’s got—“ Sherlock’s eyes widened as he took in the scene, though Mycroft saw he was more alarmed than bewildered. “Well, s—t.”

Indigo flung his arms around Sherlock and buried his face in his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Uncle Sherlock!” he cried. “I was just playing with Monkey, I don’t want you to get hurt—“

Sherlock glanced briefly at Mycroft, who expected to receive a very thorough explanation quite soon, then went back to the slave, embracing him. “Hush, it’s alright,” he soothed. “I’m sure Uncle Mycroft didn’t mean to upset you. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Are bad people going to hurt you?” Indigo wanted to know. “Are you going to take Monkey away?”

“No and no,” Sherlock promised, with great confidence. “Look, why don’t you take Monkey up to your room, and have a bit of a lie-down, alright?” Indigo started to protest but Sherlock steered him towards the door. “Just go and read quietly for a bit, hmmm? Don’t worry, everything is just fine. Look, there’s Monkey right there, he missed you. Just take him up to your room while I talk with Uncle Mycroft.”

Indigo sniffled loudly. “Well, alright,” he agreed, and scooted out the door. Sherlock shut it behind him and waited a long moment before turning around to face his brother.

“Well?” Mycroft finally prompted.

Sherlock did not see any way around it. And loathe though he was to give Mycroft this knowledge—he would surely want to exploit it in some way—there was also part of him that was excited about having someone to talk to about it, someone with a little more imagination than Lestrade.

“Dissociative identity disorder,” he finally blurted. “Childhood trauma, exacerbated by slavery.”

Mycroft blinked, but Sherlock could see him processing the information with gratifying rapidity. He was going to remember that expression on his brother’s face and savor it. “How many alternate personalities?” Mycroft asked, business-like.

“Six, plus Indigo,” Sherlock revealed, moving to the couch near the desk.

“Good Lord,” Mycroft commented.

Sherlock couldn’t contain his excitement. “I know! It’s brilliant!”

Typically Mycroft took the opposing view. “It’s unstable, Sherlock,” he chided. “He could hardly carry on a coherent conversation, let alone the _crying_ —“ Tears unsettled him as much as they did Sherlock—at least, they _used_ to unsettle Sherlock.

He waved this off, though. “That’s just Jamie, he’s only a child and anyway you upset him!” he noted. “Talking about me getting hurt, and threatening the dog!”

Mycroft felt he should not be charged with this. “A _child_? One of his personalities is a _child_? Well, anyway, how was I to know that?”

“All the rest are adults,” Sherlock promised. “Well, more or less.” Sometimes he wasn’t sure where Sleepy fell on the spectrum. “I’m sure he’s never really had to pretend to be Indigo, and you were saying such awful things to him!” Sherlock could not help his gleeful tone, though of course he would rather avoid Jamie being upset. “Why on Earth were you talking to ‘Indigo’ like that, anyway?” He managed to say the slave’s name in a way that conveyed Mycroft had been very stupid to mistake his identity.

His brother rolled his eyes. “Because it appeared to me that he’d been neglecting his duties lately, what with all these _animals_ and not keeping an eye on you—“

Sherlock was scoffing before he could finish. “ _I’ll_ decide when my own slave is neglecting his duties, thank you,” he corrected crisply. “It’s hardly _your_ business if we get pets. Anyway, the alters wanted them and I’m trying to encourage their individuality.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I can see you’re very excited about this,” he noted with disapproval. “Are you sure he’s not faking?”

“Uh, _no_.” Sherlock did not bother going into detail, merely made his assertion with confidence.

“Well then, are you sure one of these _alters_ won’t decide to stab you in the night?”

“No!” Sherlock refuted. “All the alters love me! They’re so grateful I’m not a horrible master like the ones he’s had in the past. I’ve even had sex with some of them.”

Mycroft did not really need to know this last part. “Honestly, Sherlock, you should be a little more careful,” he chided. “This is a serious mental illness, not a toy for you to play with.”

“Why can’t it be both?” Sherlock asked flippantly, knowing it would provoke his brother.

Mycroft shook his head at his folly. “I don’t suppose you would consider selling him.”

“Not for an instant.” On this point Sherlock was very firm.

They gazed at each other for a moment, Mycroft looking for any sign of uncertainty he could exploit, but Sherlock had had many years of practice hiding those. He saw when his older brother gave up searching and Sherlock grinned, eager to get back to sharing his discoveries.

“How long have you known about this?” Mycroft finally asked. His tone suggested he was being indulgent of Sherlock; but naturally, he was actually burning with curiosity.

“Since we had to go to that country house in Dorset for Lestrade’s murder investigation,” Sherlock revealed. “That man, Simmerson, was an awful person and the alters spent a lot of time protecting Indigo while he was a slave there, so being back brought them out. They hadn’t been needed since I bought Indigo because I’m such a wonderful master,” he couldn’t help but add.

Mycroft rolled his eyes at this boast. “And Indigo hadn’t warned you about this? How did he explain it?”

“He didn’t know!” Sherlock was particularly fascinated with this part. “He had no idea. He thought he just zoned out a lot, you know, like he does”—Mycroft nodded—“but sometimes the alters took over and acted for him, and kept the worst of the memories locked away.”

“That’s what they’re for? His protection?”

“Right,” Sherlock agreed. “That’s their entire purpose, protecting Indigo. Well, except Jamie, he’s special,” he amended.

Mycroft seized upon this. “How so?”

“Er…” Here Sherlock was not sure if he ought to say. He was used to being indiscreet; but Indigo was sensitive about this matter. To mention Jamie’s origins was to unleash an entire history that Indigo might not want anyone else to know.

“Oh, come on, Sherlock,” Mycroft prompted impatiently. “He’s the only one I’ve met, after all.”

Fortunately, at that moment there was a knock on the door and Indigo— _really_ Indigo this time—stuck his head in. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, making eye contact briefly with Mycroft before skipping over to Sherlock. “Could I talk to you for a moment?”

“Is it about Jamie?” Sherlock predicted.

Indigo’s eyes pinged between the two Holmes brothers. “Um, yes.”

“Come in, we’re just talking about the alters,” Sherlock informed him.

“Ah.” Indigo shut the door carefully behind him— _and_ the dog—his body language slightly tense.

“Rather inevitable, I suppose,” Sherlock claimed as Indigo approached the couch. “Er, don’t you think?” He heard Mycroft snort at his deference to a slave’s opinion and became even more convinced to heed it.

“Oh, well, I guess,” Indigo agreed without conviction. He sat down on the couch and Monkey jumped up to flop against his leg, his feet just brushing Sherlock. “Sorry, do you mind?” he asked Mycroft.

“No, it’s fine, he’s barely touching me,” Sherlock allowed, and Mycroft rolled his eyes but didn’t object to the dog’s presence on the couch. “What about Jamie?”

Indigo pet the dog absently. “Oh, he left me a note, seemed rather upset.”

“Mycroft upset him,” Sherlock tattled.

“He left you a _note_?” Mycroft asked with extreme interest. Sherlock looked at Indigo, indicating the point was his to address if he wanted.

“Um, yes, the… alters leave me notes when they’ve been here,” Indigo told him. “In a notebook Sherlock got for them. Otherwise I wouldn’t really know they’d been here or what they’d been doing.”

“They have different handwriting,” Sherlock crowed to his brother, who tried but failed to hide his fascination.

“ _Really_?”

Sherlock turned to Indigo. “Could he see the notebook?”

He could tell at once Indigo wanted to say no. “Mm, I’d rather not,” he demurred.

“Why would they have different handwriting?” Mycroft mused.

“Experience, personality, training—all of which differ between them,” Sherlock proclaimed expertly. “Hand me some paper.” Mycroft gave him a notepad which he passed on to Indigo. “Write something, and next time an alter’s about we’ll have them write the same thing. Er, if you please.”

Indigo smirked a bit at the last part but wrote a couple of lines on the paper. “ _My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!_ ” Sherlock read aloud in a dubious tone. “Are you feeling alright?” he asked in concern.

Indigo smiled. “It’s a poem,” he assured the other man.

“Oh, are you writing poetry now?”

“It’s Shelley,” Mycroft told his brother with some disgust.

“Shelley who?”

This was clearly a lost cause. “Never mind,” Mycroft decided. “So, Indigo, you didn’t realize these alternate personalities existed until recently?”

Indigo tried not to be discomfited by Mycroft’s intense gaze. It was somehow more complex than Sherlock’s—there were more layers behind it. “Yes, that’s correct,” he agreed forthrightly. “Of course there have always been gaps in my memory, but I usually attributed that to zoning out. It didn’t really seem like I was missing much,” he added significantly. “Evidence suggested the gaps had… bad things in them. Nothing I’d _want_ to remember.”

“Mm-hmm. From childhood, you said?”

 _Indigo_ hadn’t said, and he looked sharply at Sherlock. “Childhood trauma, that’s all I told him,” he insisted. “I was having, I think, a moral crisis just now, trying to decide how much to tell him,” he went on, as if this should be proof of his good intentions.

Indigo seemed less than impressed, however. “Yes, childhood trauma,” he confirmed to Mycroft, telling him nothing new.

“And why is Jamie special?” Mycroft probed persistently. “Why is he a child, and the others are protector figures?”

“Don’t hound him, Mycroft,” Sherlock snapped, keeping a close eye on Indigo. “He’ll zip out.”

“Indigo, not ten minutes ago, you were standing in this room, sobbing,” Mycroft told him seriously.

“Oh. Was I?”

“Yes. And I would like an explanation for this instability,” he went on sternly.

“I told you, he’s not _unstable_ ,” Sherlock defended.

“So what you’re saying is,” Indigo rephrased slowly, eyeing Mycroft, “you made Jamie cry?” His gaze was so serenely accusatory that Sherlock wondered for a moment if Hamish had appeared. Could he _get_ that lucky?

Quickly he turned to his brother, just in time to see him squirm the tiniest amount. “Well, I—“

“The alters love Sherlock,” Indigo dared to interrupt. “They will protect him as they do me. They’re not unstable, they’re actually quite well-organized. I’m sure Jamie was just flustered because you thought he was me. And what exactly were you saying to him?” he added, his tone still mild but his expression pointed. “Something about taking away the dog and hurting Sherlock?”

Sherlock swiveled back to his brother to see how he defended himself, not bothering to hide his amusement. Mycroft did his best to remain dignified. “I could hardly have guessed I wasn’t speaking to _you_ ,” he noted. “About your priorities.”

“He thinks you oughtn’t have pets,” Sherlock translated. “He thinks you ought to focus your complete attention on _me_.”

Indigo smirked, fondly. “You’ve got _seven_ people _almost_ completely focused on you,” he claimed. “If we didn’t have the animals I’m not sure you would survive the attention.”

“Well, I’d try.”

Indigo relaxed a little and turned back to Mycroft. “Jamie wanted a dog, you see,” he explained more readily, though Mycroft did _not_ see. “And then Sleepy pouted until he got a cat, and then Charlie wanted a lizard.”

Mycroft blinked at him. “Sleepy? Charlie?” A lesser being might’ve found it too much to take in, but Mycroft wasn’t missing a detail. “Who are the other three?”

Sherlock glanced at Indigo, who seemed to be fine with him answering. “There’s Fury, Saucy, and Hamish,” he listed. Of course their names were the least interesting thing about them, really.

“Sleepy, Fury, Saucy,” Mycroft repeated thoughtfully.

“Yes, and he’s Snow White,” Indigo deadpanned, indicating Sherlock.

“Wasn’t that a girl?” Sherlock asked, clearly having no idea what he was referring to.

“Can I _meet_ one of them?” Mycroft pressed.

“You already met Jamie and that didn’t go very well,” Sherlock pointed out, once again. “You’ll have to promise to be more _sensitive_ with the others.”

Impugning Mycroft’s sensitivity offended him, as Sherlock surely knew it would. “I have—successfully, mind you—handled negotiations with foreign powers with a level of skill and delicacy that you can’t even—“

Indigo made a small noise, which interrupted both Mycroft’s indignant rant and Sherlock’s mocking huffs. “Oh, sorry,” he said, as if it had been accidental.

They took the hint, at least. “You could meet Charlie,” Sherlock suggested. “I’m quite certain you won’t make _him_ cry. Mm, if that’s alright with you,” he added quickly to Indigo.

“I would prefer no crying,” he responded, not exactly on point. “It’s rather unsettling when I come to.”

“So you have no awareness of what’s happening when an alternate personality is in control?” Mycroft checked.

“We’ve _established_ that already,” Sherlock said impatiently. “There wouldn’t be much purpose to them, if he _remembered_ the things that were done to him. That’s the point, they compartmentalize his memories.”

“And what sort of things are we talking about here?” Mycroft asked, business-like. He could imagine a wide range of atrocities but didn’t know which in particular were at work here. “Childhood physical abuse? Sexual abuse? Beatings as an adult? Rape? Emotional—oh, honestly.” How could you have a decent conversation with someone who kept mentally vanishing on you?

“Mycroft!” Sherlock admonished, fussing over Indigo’s suddenly still form on the couch. “You claim to be _sensitive_ , then you start listing all kinds of horrible things he doesn’t want to think about!”

“Sherlock, this is ridiculous,” Mycroft judged, watching Indigo stare straight ahead with unfocused eyes. “I am trying to be professional and straightforward, and understand the parameters of his affliction. If he’s not able to face facts you really _ought_ to consider getting rid of him. That kind of denial could be dangerous.”

Mycroft leaned back in his chair with a defeated sigh, taking no pleasure in advising his brother to give up the one thing that (occasionally) made him think about something other than himself. But Indigo’s reliability was already in question in Mycroft’s mind with this habit of ‘zoning out,’ and now to discover he had a full-fledged mental disorder with _multiple personalities_? He could see Sherlock was fascinated by it, but it didn’t exactly speak to Indigo’s suitability as an intimate companion, let alone the (often) more responsible party.

“He faces facts just fine with _me_ ,” Sherlock insisted. “But it’s rather _difficult_ for him, and you’re not exactly sympathetic.”

“Well, which trauma is it, then?”

“Er, all of the above,” Sherlock admitted, with enough sincerity that Mycroft raised an eyebrow. He knew John Watson had had a hard life as a slave; he hadn’t realized it began even earlier. Obviously he would need to look into this further. “Look, I’ll see if I can get Charlie to come out,” Sherlock decided. “Hamish is the gatekeeper, he was the first alter and directs the others. He’ll know if Indigo was for it or not.”

“This is very convoluted,” Mycroft noted. “I can see why it appeals to you.”

“Yes, it’s brilliant,” Sherlock enthused before turning to Indigo. “I’d like to speak to Charlie, please.”

“That’s all you have to—“ Mycroft stopped when he saw the slave transform before his eyes. Posture, expression, the look in his eyes as they refocused on the room. Maybe some would call it subtle and be fooled into thinking they were looking at the same person—but Mycroft was used to assessing the smallest changes in body language and attitude, and he knew better.

He knew at least as much as the dog, anyway, who immediately got up and threw himself across Sherlock’s lap. “Yeah, well, I don’t want to sit next to _you_ , either,” Charlie told him with a sneer. “You _smell_.”

Mycroft was not sure which was more surprising, this new personality or that his brother was now petting a dog. He tried to ignore the distraction of the latter. “He has a different accent,” he noted of the former. Charlie made a derisive sound which was rather rude.

“Charlie, you know my brother Mycroft, don’t you?” Sherlock prompted.

“Oh, certainly I’m acquainted with His Highness,” Charlie replied disdainfully. “He’s the one that upset Jamie.”

“They’re quite fixated on that, aren’t they?” Mycroft observed.

“Well, they’re very protective of Jamie,” Sherlock explained. “They all know each other in there, somehow. Except Indigo, he’s got to sit in a room all alone.”

This led Charlie to unleash his unsettling hooting laugh. “Such a soft touch,” he teased, but Sherlock felt it was meant affectionately. “Anyway,” he added to Mycroft, now with a hint of menace, “my name’s Bonnie Prince Charlie. It’s _better_ to get it right.”

“Don’t be threatening,” Sherlock admonished him. “Mycroft already thinks you’re going to murder me in the night.”

“Haven’t yet,” Charlie quipped. “And you got me a lizard, so I think we’re good.”

“And what, exactly, is the purpose of _this_ charming personality?” Mycroft wanted to know, clearly unable to think of any.

“You could try speaking _directly_ to me,” Charlie said sharply, before Sherlock could answer. “Or maybe you don’t talk to slaves at all? Just let ‘em—“

“Charlie,” Sherlock interrupted, trying not to laugh. He could see the alter was peeved, though, and held out his hand to him.

With a long-suffering sigh Charlie took it. “You’ve got _dog_ all over your hands,” he complained.

“So have you.”

“Oh right.”

“Charlie is the youngest alter,” Sherlock explained to Mycroft finally. “He was only created a few years ago, at Simmerson’s estate.”

“Old bugger liked making slaves torture each other,” Charlie shrugged. “Better to be the one holding the whip than the one chained to the wall. ‘Course, _he_ doesn’t like to think about that.”

“Indigo,” Sherlock clarified for Mycroft. “They don’t usually refer to him by name.”

“How interesting. I can see how someone with a… willingness to get the job done might be very useful,” Mycroft noted in a calculating way.

“Cease _immediately_ thinking of ways to exploit him, Mycroft!” Sherlock snapped.

“Merely an observation.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really get to torture anyone these days,” Charlie admitted. “I’m an artist now.”

“Oh, he’s very talented,” Sherlock enthused. “At least that’s what people say. When he draws things you can tell what they are.” Charlie hooted with laughter at his compliment. “Which reminds me…” Sherlock went on, picking up the notepad. He flipped to a clean page and handed it to Charlie. “Can we get a sample of your handwriting? I’ll tell you what to write.”

Charlie wrinkled his nose. “Not my favorite thing, taking _dictation_ ,” he complained, making this sound as dirty as possible. He reached into his pocket. “Why don’t you just—“ Suddenly he went silent, head cocked to the side, and Mycroft sat up in alarm.

“What’s happened?” he demanded.

“He’s just listening to Hamish,” Sherlock assured him. “Hamish keeps a close eye on things.”

“Well, never mind,” Charlie said, taking his hand from his pocket, empty. “UnderHim says _he_ doesn’t want you reading our notebook. Makes sense, you’re a sneaky devil,” he judged of Mycroft.

“UnderHim?”

“Hamish,” Sherlock translated. “Same person. Why can’t you learn to call him that instead?” he asked Charlie.

“Why bother?” the alter shrugged. He picked up the pen. “What’d you want me to write?”

“ _My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!_ ” Sherlock recited to him. Having no idea of its meaning or context did not prevent him from memorizing it, temporarily at least.

Charlie seemed to share his confusion. “Yeah, you sure _we’re_ the crazy one?” he commented dubiously, writing.

“It’s _poetry_ ,” Sherlock assured him disdainfully. “Shelley.”

Charlie snorted. “Is that the _Frankenstein_ chick?”

Sherlock blinked at him. “I have no idea. Is _Frankenstein_ about a woman? I thought there was a werewolf involved.”

Mycroft couldn’t take it anymore. “Your lack of cultural knowledge is deplorable,” he judged sharply. “At least _he_ has an excuse”—indicating Charlie—“but _you_ attended the finest schools in England!”

“Deleted,” Sherlock shot back. “Irrelevant!”

“G-d, calm down,” Charlie advised. “We’ll watch some monster movies when we get home and catch up. Here.” He gave Sherlock back the notepad, and he passed it to Mycroft. The elder Holmes arranged the two pages and studied them carefully.

“That is really amazing,” he confessed after a moment.

“Told you,” Sherlock replied ungraciously.

There was silence for a moment. “So about the matter of Jamie’s apology,” Charlie began leadingly.

Mycroft glanced over at him. “Yes, an apology would be appreciated,” he agreed.

Charlie huffed, however. “I mean an apology _to_ Jamie, you daft git.”

Mycroft bristled at the insult. “I beg your pardon?” he said coldly, with a gaze that had reduced statesmen to quivering wrecks.

Charlie was made of different stuff, though. “I’m used to people begging,” he shot back.

Sherlock decided to intervene. “I think it would be a nice gesture on your part,” he assured his brother in a sensible tone, “to offer an apology to Jamie. You _did_ make him cry and he’s just a child.”

Mycroft tried to put his dislike for Charlie’s attitude aside. “Fine. A reasonable concession,” he judged. “Will Jamie be coming back?”

He looked to Sherlock, who looked to Charlie. “Nah, he’s busy,” Charlie claimed.

“Doing _what_?” Mycroft wanted to know.

Charlie tilted his head to the side for a moment. “UnderHim says he’s playing cops and robbers with his brother,” he reported.

Sherlock was pleased about this. “Is he? I hope he remembers the forensic advice I gave him.”

“I think it’s mostly chasing each other and shouting,” Charlie clarified.

“Oh.”

Mycroft had a weightier concern, however. “Who’s his brother? How can they be playing?”

“You wouldn’t understand the metaphysics of it,” Sherlock claimed loftily. “I’m sure you could give your apology to Charlie, and he would pass it on.”

“Oh yes,” Charlie agreed, grinning obnoxiously.

Mycroft saw little alternative—clearly no one else in the room was capable of dealing with things rationally. “Alright. Please convey my sincerest apologies to Jamie,” he told Charlie formally. “It was not my intention to upset him, and in fact I didn’t realize I was speaking to him.”

“It was actually his intention to upset _Indigo_ , to whom he _thought_ he was speaking,” Sherlock just had to add.

Mycroft pointedly ignored this contribution. “I should be very happy to meet with Jamie again sometime, with a proper introduction,” he concluded.

“He doesn’t actually like children,” Sherlock amended in a tattling tone.

“Neither do you,” Mycroft couldn’t help noting.

“I like Jamie!” Sherlock insisted. “Though he is occasionally sticky and loud.”

“You two should have a vaudeville act,” Charlie cracked, looking from one to the other.

Mycroft tried to reclaim his dignity. “Is that apology acceptable?” he asked, and Charlie checked.

“UnderHim says Jamie says it’s alright,” he conveyed. “Oh, UnderHim says you oughtn’t worry about the alters, we’re all fond of this one.” He jerked his head to indicate Sherlock, who grinned. “Plus, we don’t hurt the master. To hurt the master is death.”

“A little pithy advice against losing one’s temper as a slave,” Sherlock explained hastily, as Charlie’s remarks took a dark turn. “Er, do you think we might meet Hamish directly?”

“Doubt it,” Charlie snorted.

“Please? I think he and Mycroft would have much in common,” he tried to persuade.

Charlie asked but almost immediately shook his head. “UnderHim says he doesn’t see any utility in it. And, he’s busy,” he added. “Sleepy and Fury miss the cat. They’re such babies,” Charlie opined disdainfully, listing the problems UnderHim was currently managing. “And, you know Sleepy doesn’t like being in new places.” Sherlock nodded regretfully. “Did you remind Mrs. Hudson that Alexander needs to be fed on time, or else he gets cranky? And he prefers the _live_ crickets, not the freeze-dried ones.”

“You wrote her a note,” Sherlock reminded him with a sigh, patting his hand. “You wrote her a _novel_ about the care and feeding of the lizard.”

“Alexander’s very sensitive,” Charlie insisted. “Well, am I done dancing for your coins?” he asked finally. “I _have_ got stuff to do, you know.”

“What stuff?” Mycroft wanted to know, obviously still unable to imagine what sort of activity went on inside Indigo’s head.

Charlie gave him a sneer, which suggested this ‘stuff’ was far too important to bother explaining to the likes of _him_. Mycroft was not used to such expressions being directed at him, to put it mildly. “You want _him_ back?” Charlie asked Sherlock.

“Yes, I suppose that would be best,” he agreed. “Thank you, Charlie. After dark I’ll try to get Sleepy to come out,” he added to Mycroft. “He doesn’t like to come out during the day. I’m not sure you’re ready to meet Saucy or Fury yet.”

“Did I miss something?” Indigo asked, glancing around. He reached into his pocket.

“Oh, I didn’t remind Charlie to sign the notebook,” Sherlock realized. “Sorry, we distracted him.”

“Oh. Right, then.” Indigo made a notation in the book on his own.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Mycroft wanted to know.

“I believe you were saying something horrible to me,” Indigo responded dryly, secure in the knowledge that his master would not reprimand him for such a remark.

“That happens a lot with Mycroft,” Sherlock agreed, as his brother rolled his eyes. He pushed on Monkey. “Go away. Charlie’s gone now.”

“Come here, Monkey,” Indigo coaxed, and the dog finally switched laps. “Good boy.”

“How can the dog tell the difference between them?” Mycroft asked. “And why doesn’t it like Charlie?”

“Does _anyone_ like Charlie?” Sherlock replied rhetorically. Indigo made a warning noise. “Aside from me, of course,” he added hastily.

“Charlie, then,” Indigo repeated matter-of-factly, holding his notebook. “Anyone else?”

“No, Hamish won’t come out,” Sherlock conveyed with disappointment. “He said he was _busy_.”

“What do they _do_ , that they can be busy?” Mycroft persisted.

“Haven’t the foggiest,” Indigo shrugged without concern. He tucked his notebook away and stood, Monkey’s nails clattering on the floor. “Think I’ll take the dog out for a walk. Alright?”

“Alright,” Sherlock agreed, not really caring about that. “Oh, Mycroft apologized and Jamie said it was fine.”

“Oh really?” This made Indigo smile, an unusually vibrant gesture that drew Sherlock’s attention like a magnet. “That’s nice. Thanks,” he told Mycroft.

“I insisted,” Sherlock claimed, to draw his gaze back from his brother. Mycroft did not dispute this, more interested in glancing between the two of them.

“Alright,” Indigo said, still pleased. “Come on, Monkey, let’s go.”

As soon as the door shut on them Mycroft rounded on his brother, intent on further interrogation, but Sherlock sprang to his feet. “Must be off. I touched the dog so I think a shower is in order.” This was hard to argue with. But the delay in continuing this conversation would give Mycroft ample time to think of more questions.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3: After the Fall. Mycroft has finally tracked down Indigo, who vanished when he thought Sherlock died. But it will be an uphill battle to convince him to return to the man who broke his heart.

Mycroft walked into the dim bar, his quick gaze taking in the patrons automatically and sorting them into categories. The overall assessment was ‘mostly harmless.’ He walked with confidence but also ease, as if he came into this bar every day; of course this was actually his first visit, though he’d studied pictures and video of it beforehand. His suit was a little formal, perhaps, but there were a few businessmen there having an evening drink, so he could blend in with that crowd.

There were empty tables and booths available, which he would have preferred normally, but this time he slid onto a stool at the bar, watching the bartender closely as he assisted another customer. He was thirtyish, blond hair, on the short side with a stocky build. He flashed a ready smile and seemed comfortable in his work, but in a low-key way. A casual patron would walk away happy with the service but unable to pick the man’s face from a crowd.

The bartender spotted Mycroft. There was no hesitation; he walked over with a smile. “What can I get you?” he asked pleasantly. His French was impeccable, a native Parisian accent even to Mycroft’s ears. His deep blue eyes held no hint of recognition.

Mycroft ordered a glass of the house white. “Are you from around here?” he asked conversationally.

“Oh, of course,” the bartender replied. “Who would leave Paris?” He laughed, lightly. “And you?”

“Business trip,” Mycroft claimed. “I’m from London. Have you ever been to England?”

“No,” the bartender assured him. “It sounds lovely, though. Here you go.”

Mycroft nursed the wine for half an hour, chatting with the bartender when business was slow. His name was Jean-Paul; he could describe the Parisian neighborhood where he’d grown up, but sadly he hadn’t gotten back there in a while, and he rarely saw anyone from it these days. As a student he’d gone to Germany on a school trip, but otherwise he had done very little traveling. He spoke a little German, a little English, a little Spanish, but really only French. He just didn’t have the ability for it, unfortunately.

By the end of the conversation Mycroft figured Jean-Paul would think he was trying to chat him up. Jean-Paul didn’t seem uncomfortable with this but neither did he encourage it. Finally Mycroft paid for his drink, included a generous tip, and left.

Anthea was waiting in the car for him. “Was it him?” She hardly needed to ask; Mycroft wouldn’t have gone in if he hadn’t been nearly sure already.

“Yes,” he confirmed, and he saw her fingers start to fly over her mobile. “He didn’t know me,” he added thoughtfully. “Seems thoroughly naturalized.” Anthea paused and looked up at him, more at the tone than the words. This did not change Mycroft’s plan, however. “Have him picked up when he goes home,” he ordered.

Indigo was coming back where he belonged.

**

Well, that hadn’t gone well.

Mycroft managed to stave off the Paris police; the men being carried out of the alley were all his own, and he possessed the highest credentials of the British government. Besides which he intended to have this wrapped up before the locals could even get through their paperwork.

He took a few pictures of the scene and emailed them—rather dispassionate to observers, he supposed, but no one had been _seriously_ hurt.

A text message responded. _Warned you about Fury._ Then, _Is he alright?_

_Going to check_ , Mycroft texted back.

A few blocks away was a nondescript apartment building, inexpensive but respectable. Mycroft walked up to the third floor and knocked on a door.

There was a long pause and he saw a shadow cover the peep hole. He stared back at it steadily.

After another moment the door opened slightly. Jean-Paul did not look so comfortable now; there was blood on his face and his eyes were wary. “Sorry, this isn’t really a good time—“ he began.

“Indigo,” Mycroft interrupted. Jean-Paul only looked confused. “I would like to speak to Indigo.”

“Sorry, I don’t speak English, I don’t know what you mean,” Jean-Paul insisted, trying to shut the door.

Mycroft blocked it with his walking stick. “I’ll speak to Hamish, then.”

“I don’t know Hamish, I don’t know Indigo,” Jean-Paul responded severely in stilted English. “Go away.” He tried to push the walking stick away.

Mycroft sighed and pulled out his phone. “Very well.” He pressed the play button on the recording he’d queued up.

“ _I’d like to speak to Hamish_ ,” said Sherlock’s voice.

Mycroft watched with interest as Jean-Paul’s expression and body language changed, to the point where he might almost be called another person. With a resigned, aloof air he opened the door wider. “Very clever,” he said in English, with no trace of a French accent. There was something frankly dangerous about this new person, and Mycroft did not push inside the flat.

“Hamish?” he checked. He’d never actually met this alter before.

“Come in,” the man responded, stepping aside, and Mycroft finally did so. The door was shut and locked behind him with a feeling of finality, and Mycroft resisted the urge to text for backup.

Hamish settled on the small couch, Mycroft in a chair. The flat was small, sparse, but there were a few personal items around, which seemed perplexing. “Jean-Paul is musically-minded,” Hamish said casually, nodding at the electric keyboard in the corner.

“How intriguing,” Mycroft replied. He understood now his brother’s descriptions of Hamish: this was not a man who blended in, who was low-key. He walked into a room and he owned it, quietly yes, but with a magnetism that drew every eye. Just the way he sat on the couch reminded Mycroft of a lion—controlled, powerful, watchful. And now he was watching Mycroft. “I hope you’re not injured,” Mycroft offered.

Something unsettling flashed in Hamish’s eyes. “Not really.” His gaze seemed to demand an explanation.

“I didn’t realize how deeply entrenched the Jean-Paul persona was,” Mycroft went on, finding it a challenge to avoid defensiveness.

“He’s an alter,” Hamish stated, as if he was correcting Mycroft’s wording. “He doesn’t know about the others, though. Like Indigo.”

Mycroft had been waiting for this opening. “And, where _is_ Indigo?”

“He’s dormant.”

That didn’t sound good. “May I speak to him?”

“No.”

“Is he alright?”

“No.” Hamish’s eyes glittered, cold and hard.

Mycroft paused to assess. “I would like you to return to England with me.”

Hamish narrowed his eyes slightly, as if this remark told him a great deal. “Sherlock feels it’s safe enough now?”

Mycroft could not help betraying a slight amount of surprise. “What makes you think Sherlock is still alive?” he asked carefully.

Hamish snorted as if this question insulted him. “Please. Sherlock Holmes has too much ego to kill himself,” he judged in a harsh tone. “More than enough ego to assume that Indigo will come running whenever he summons him.”

Mycroft was not here to defend Sherlock’s actions to this man. “Actually we’ve been looking for you for a while,” he admitted. “Since you disappeared, of course, but it was only recently that we made any progress at all.” He allowed a hint of admiration to enter his voice.

It did not mollify Hamish. “Indigo thought he saw Sherlock throw himself from a building in despair,” he reminded Mycroft. “That’s what he was _meant_ to see. I don’t think either of you are capable of understanding the effect this had on him.” Mycroft winced internally at his tone, which was icy and unyielding.

“I had to take him out to protect him,” Hamish continued. “And I had to take all of us to safety. Since Sherlock hadn’t bothered to share his plans with me, I didn’t know what traps Moriarty had set.”

“Sherlock’s suicide was meant to disarm them,” Mycroft said, even though he’d told himself he was going to let his brother speak for himself. “He did it to protect those he cared about. Including Indigo.”

“He failed.” His voice and gaze were steel. “ _I_ protected Indigo.”

“I’m sure you two will have a very productive discussion about this,” Mycroft predicted dryly. “Will you return to England with me?”

“What are his circumstances?”

Mycroft wondered if this was his way of asking how Sherlock was. “He’s doing alright, I suppose,” he answered. “He’s been quite worried about Indigo—“

Hamish took a sharp breath, as if Mycroft had gotten it all wrong. “I assume he’s been using this time to surreptitiously dismantle Moriarty’s network,” he clarified briskly. “There’s been no news of his return, so clearly he’s still in hiding. I wish to know under what circumstances we’ll be meeting, and under what circumstances I’m expected to live, should I choose to stay.”

Mycroft’s eyes went to Hamish’s throat, which was bare. Of course it would be; there was no slavery in France. Though slaves who escaped here could be legally compelled to return to their owners—Mycroft knew no one wanted to go down that route, however. “He’s staying at our family home in Strathmore,” he told Hamish. “As you say, he has been destroying Moriarty’s organization and feels he’s close to being able to reveal himself to the public. You could stay at Strathmore or return to the flat at Baker Street if you prefer. It’s been maintained just as it was, Mrs. Hudson is there. Sherlock will likely be traveling intermittently for some time still.”

Hamish nodded, not with acceptance but with understanding. “What about the animals?” he asked briskly. “The dog, the cat, and the lizard. The others will want to know about them.”

“I’m given to understand they’re all fine,” Mycroft assured him. He hadn’t thought to inquire much, honestly. “May I speak to any of the others?”

“No.”

“Are they aware of what’s been happening?” He knew _Sherlock_ would want to know that.

The question seemed to anger Hamish further, however, his eyes burning with cold fire. “They are aware,” he replied, “to the extent I thought it prudent. I did not tell Jamie what happened, only that we had to go away for a while. He misses Sherlock terribly. Some of the others are angry, some are more understanding of Sherlock’s motives.” More understanding than _me_ , his tone suggested.

Mycroft gave him a hard look. “Can I trust you—all of you—if you return to Sherlock?” However much his brother missed the slave, Mycroft would not allow him to be endangered by him.

This question did _not_ offend Hamish. “We have no wish to harm Sherlock physically,” he answered coolly. He paused for a moment. “Fury says he may punch him in the face if they meet. But only once.”

“I can live with that.” It was something he wanted to do himself often enough.

“If we aren’t happy we’ll just leave quietly,” Hamish warned. “We’ll disappear, like we did before.”

“No more Jean-Paul?”

“He’s versatile.”

“Very well,” Mycroft agreed. “When can you leave?”

“I’ll pack now.”

**

Hamish was unnervingly silent during the trip. Silent and still. But he never zoned out, the way Indigo used to do; he was always watchful. Mycroft admired his focus, his clarity of thinking, but he suspected Hamish had little interest in anything that didn’t affect Indigo or the other alters—so he would not be of much use to Mycroft in other plans, sadly. He even managed to ignore the constant texts from Sherlock Mycroft was receiving, which increased in frequency the closer they came.

Strathmore sped by and the family home came into view—old and grand but certainly not the oldest or grandest house around; wouldn’t want to be ostentatious, after all. Sherlock had been told in no uncertain terms to _stay inside_ ; Hamish, Indigo, the whole package was being brought to him, and he should not compromise his safety for the sake of seeing him a few seconds sooner. Mycroft trusted all the remaining staff absolutely, but the house was a natural target for those watching at a distance.

They entered the front hall. The door shut behind them. Then the study door was flung open and Sherlock flew out, racing across the tile floor. He squeaked to a stop in front of Hamish, who had shown no appreciable emotion upon seeing him. Even for Sherlock it was an awkward moment.

“Hamish,” he finally said. Sherlock’s entire body language shouted that he wanted to hug him; and Hamish’s entire body language repulsed even the _idea_ of a hug.

“We’re very angry with you, Sherlock,” he began coolly. “Indigo was devastated when he thought you’d died.”

Pain flashed across Sherlock’s face. “I know,” he agreed. “I knew he would be. But it was the only way to save him from Moriarty’s—“

Hamish was already shaking his head. “No, it wasn’t,” he corrected sharply. “If you had asked me to help you defeat Moriarty, we could have done so without this charade.” The look on Sherlock’s face said so clearly that he had never seriously considered this. “But you were too proud. You didn’t want any help. So here we are.”

Mycroft was not sure he’d ever seen his brother at a loss for words before, or heard him admonished with such brutal, honest efficiency. “Let’s go into the study,” he suggested tactfully.

It had been necessary for Sherlock to ask for _his_ help over the last few months, to conduct his attacks against Moriarty’s colleagues with the required resources; once it had been established they were in this together, Mycroft had, to his surprise, gained a new respect for his younger brother. He had always known Sherlock was brilliant, of course, dogged and ruthless when he needed to be; and there was the residual affection of youth, illogical though it was. But in the last few months Mycroft had truly been able to appreciate Sherlock as a whole person, flawed yes but struggling to bring justice to the world. Somehow, that made it hurt even more to see him rejected by the person he’d been so concerned about.

Hamish took possession of the couch in the study; when Sherlock tried to sit next to him Hamish’s glance pushed him away, as surely as if he’d had a stick in his hand. Mycroft tried to keep himself out of the way, with a good view of both of them.

“Hamish, can I talk to Indigo?” Sherlock asked hopefully.

“No.”

“One of the others, then? Jamie—“

“No,” Hamish repeated, so coldly Sherlock winced. “You will most definitely not speak to Jamie or Indigo. The others—“ Sherlock looked up, optimistically. “—I will decide about later.”

Sherlock chose to take this as a good sign, faint though it was. “Hamish, I’ve been so worried about you,” he confessed. “When Indigo disappeared, we didn’t know what had happened, we thought maybe Moriarty—“

Hamish let him stew in the awful things he’d imagined. “I was protecting Indigo,” he finally said. “From you.”

He might have slapped him across the face; even Mycroft grimaced. Sherlock had always been so proud of the fact that the alters trusted him not to hurt any of them. “Hamish, I’m so sorry, I really thought I had no other choice,” Sherlock tried to explain. “There were, literally, guns aimed at you, and others, and I couldn’t risk being overheard telling you, or if you gave the wrong reaction—“

Hamish just stared at him until he stopped talking on his own. “I’m not interested in your excuses, Sherlock,” he replied. “I was there. I know what options you had. You took the dramatic solo path that served your own purposes.”

“No—no, I thought of Indigo, and—“ Mycroft wondered if his brother was actually going to cry. That would be alarming. “He’s all I thought of—“

“Yes, I’m sure you felt bad about it,” Hamish acknowledged, in the most dismissive tone possible. He fixed his cold stare on Sherlock. “You know what Indigo has been through. You know how much he cares about you. You should have known what it would do to him, to see the person he most cared about kill himself. If I hadn’t taken control he would’ve thrown himself in front of the nearest car and joined you on the sidewalk, only it wouldn’t have been a trick. You would’ve done Moriarty’s work for him.”

Sherlock seemed to get smaller and smaller during Hamish’s speech, folding in on himself and flinching with each phrase—Mycroft thought physical blows would’ve hurt less, actually. He was usually the first to castigate his brother for his reckless behavior, but part of him felt Hamish was being unfair—very willfully, he saw only his own part of the matter, and not the bigger picture. People like Mycroft and Sherlock didn’t have the luxury of doing that.

After a moment Sherlock spoke, his voice thick. “Hamish… can you forgive me?”

This question, at last, seemed to take the other man by surprise. “Sherlock, I have never forgiven anyone,” he stated matter-of-factly. “And I have never forgotten anyone who hurt us.” This was, it seemed, a matter of policy, to which no exception had ever been granted.

Sherlock nodded slowly, as if he understood this. “I would really like to speak to some of the others,” he finally said, quietly. “To see if they’re alright.”

“They’re _not_ alright,” Hamish countered, which seemed just a bit unnecessary to Mycroft. “Jamie misses you a great deal—I didn’t dare tell him the whole story. Indigo is dormant—everything stopped for him the moment you died. Saucy and Sleepy—well, you can imagine how upset they were. They weren’t used to _liking_ anyone.”

“What about Fury and Charlie?” Sherlock pressed, just begging for more punishment.

“Oh, once I explained that you weren’t really dead, Fury and Charlie thought it was brilliant,” Hamish answered, with deep sarcasm. “So the ones who’ve endorsed your idea are the ones who’ve done the things Indigo would consider most reprehensible to protect him. That’s who agrees with you, Sherlock.”

“Hamish.” Mycroft felt the need to intervene, though he kept his tone neutral. “You’ve had a long day, perhaps you’d like to get some rest.”

Hamish was not fooled about his motives. “Fine,” he agreed shortly, and he started to stand.

“Wait,” Sherlock said unexpectedly, almost reaching out to touch him. Hamish paused and looked back. “Mycroft said there was a new alter. Jean-Paul? What’s he like?”

Hamish seemed slightly surprised that he’d thought to ask. “He doesn’t know about the others. He thinks he grew up in Paris. He plays the piano, tends bar.”

“He’s happy, then?” Sherlock asked hopefully.

Hamish blinked. “He’s lonely,” he replied, as if just now realizing this. Then he turned and left.

The door thumped shut behind him; the sound seemed to linger for a long moment. Then Sherlock let out a shuddery breath and collapsed back in the chair. “I really f----d this up,” he said.

“Well, on the off chance you care what I think,” Mycroft countered lightly, “I think you’ve done very well for ninety-five percent of it.”

Sherlock smirked mirthlessly. “But that remaining five percent…”

“He _is_ something,” Mycroft agreed thoughtfully. “So different from Indigo—brilliant, ruthless, totally focused on his goal. Not unlike you,” he noted, meaning it as a compliment.

“I know,” Sherlock sighed, as if it was _not_ a compliment. “I feel like I’ve made an enemy of him.”

“Oh, not an enemy,” Mycroft dismissed. “He’s hurt, that’s all. That’s natural. He’s hurt for himself, and on behalf of those he protects.”

“Do you know what he _does_ to people who hurt him?” Sherlock asked, rhetorically.

“I know what you’ve told me,” Mycroft reminded him, which had been a lot more lately as they searched for him. “For Hamish the world has always been a battlefield. He sees the threat everywhere, he’s always looking for what will hurt them.”

“And this time it was me,” Sherlock sighed despondently.

“You’re _not_ like those who’ve hurt them before,” Mycroft asserted. “He’ll realize that. Just give him some time.” Easier said than done.

**

Hamish lay awake that night, thinking. Or maybe ‘awake’ wasn’t the right term; the body rested, it needed rest, but Hamish was still able to think. The exact physiological parameters of it did not interest him. He was thinking about Sherlock and John—he always thought of him as John, because that was who he had been for so long. First he was Johnny, then John, then often just Watson in the Army, and after that he had answered to a variety of names but none had sunk in, really. Actually ‘Indigo’ had sunk in the most, because of how he felt about Sherlock—it was like a nickname, really, and Hamish knew that sometimes John was surprised when he suddenly remembered it wasn’t _really_ his name.

This was a difficult situation. Hamish was used to difficult situations, of course, used to stepping in and taking control of them when John couldn’t. John was used to difficult situations, too, he was no slouch in that department, as he’d proven many times totally on his own during combat. Hamish was so proud of him for that. But when things became more personal, more emotional, it took him back to his childhood, and Hamish gladly stepped in to help him, as anyone would do for a friend.

This hurt was personal and emotional, and Hamish had done what he did best and took over. He’d walked straight out of London, away from all the prying eyes, and planned where he could take them, where they would all be safe. The anger he felt towards Sherlock was like a living thing, hot and pulsing in his mind. He had known at once that somehow, Sherlock wasn’t really dead; but John didn’t know that, and he had never been so devastated as when he spoke to Sherlock for the last time and watched him plunge from that building. Never in his life had his heart, his spirit, broken like that. All for a deception—all because Sherlock, the genius, had been too stupid and proud to think of another solution.

Of course Hamish would probably have been just as angry at him if he really _had_ died, but there wouldn’t have been much point to it long-term. But he knew Sherlock—being very much alive—would find him sooner or later; he hadn’t put too much effort into hiding. Actually, he suspected it was really Mycroft who had found him. Maybe if the Holmes brothers had found themselves able to work together on a common goal, it meant Sherlock _could_ learn, _could_ change what had gotten him into trouble with Hamish.

Hamish had made important decisions for John in the past, decisions that John wasn’t aware of and wouldn’t have liked, wouldn’t have chosen himself. But John’s choices, Hamish had judged, would likely get him killed, so in the interests of preservation Hamish had acted instead.

This time, though… Maybe this time, things were different.

Hamish found himself in the flat at Baker Street. Ah, naturally. John thought of this as home now. It was eerily quiet and the edges of the room blurred into nothingness—obviously the details weren’t important. Hamish thought about going upstairs to the room set aside for Indigo, but then he realized that wasn’t where he would be, and he opened the door to Sherlock’s bedroom.

John was in bed, asleep. Hamish had one last chance to change his mind and back out. But he didn’t. Instead he sat down on the bed and gently shook John’s shoulder.

The man awoke groggily, assessing his surroundings and trying to remember what had been going on when he went to sleep. Then he _did_ remember, and he sat suddenly upright in bed, looking around wildly. He did a double-take when he saw his visitor, who waited patiently.

“Hello, John.”

“You’re Hamish, aren’t you?” John replied, then frowned. “How do I know that?”

“How do you know anything in a dream?” Hamish asked philosophically. “You just _know_ , even if there’s nothing to indicate it.”

John calmed down a little. “Oh, so this is a dream.”

“Not exactly,” Hamish clarified. “We _are_ in your mind, though.”

“Oh. How is it that we’re talking, then?” John asked him. “I thought we couldn’t.”

“We just never have,” Hamish countered. “Actually, that’s not true. We talked a little when you were a child, when you first made me after Jamie’s death. But it frightened you, so I stayed quiet.”

“I don’t remember that,” John admitted slowly.

“I shouldn’t think you would.”

“Why are we talking now, then?” he asked, more to the point. “Has it anything to do with—“ He paused, looking away as his expression crumpled.

“Sherlock? Yes,” Hamish confirmed.

“Did it really—That was real, what I saw?” John wanted to know, his tone begging Hamish to say it was all some horrible dream. But he also knew, deep down, that it wasn’t, and his eyes filled with tears that he hurried to brush away. “Oh G-d. Where—where am I? Am I still on the street? Is this what happens when I zone out?”

“John, you’re safe, and Sherlock is alive,” Hamish told him evenly. He would not keep this kind of information from his friend, and John’s eyes widened with disbelief.

“What?!”

“It was a trick, to fool Moriarty’s henchmen into thinking he was dead,” Hamish explained. “It had the immediate benefit of lifting the threat from you and others Sherlock cares about, and the long-term benefit of allowing him to work at destroying their network undetected.” One advantage to sharing someone’s mind was the ability to convey complex ideas quickly. Repetition was so tedious.

Though one sometimes had to put up with it from others. “He just _pretended_ to kill himself,” John restated. “Yes, yes, that _does_ sound like something he would do. What a b-----d!”

His tone had gone from relief to anger in a moment. “Yes,” Hamish agreed mildly.

“He couldn’t have _explained_ that to me?” John ranted. “Why would he let me believe—There couldn’t possibly have been another way? He’s always going on about what a bloody genius he is, he couldn’t have found a way to—“

“Yes,” Hamish repeated. This was exactly how _he_ felt on the matter, of course, though he didn’t want to work John up too much. “He was proud. He wanted to beat Moriarty on his own. He could’ve asked me for help.”

“You? Yes, I see,” John agreed, as he suddenly did. “Sherlock says _you’re_ a genius, too. Could you have really helped him beat Moriarty?”

“I see no reason why not,” Hamish shrugged, immodest but honest. John smirked faintly. “It’s really more a question of whether I’d be willing,” he went on leadingly. “My focus is normally very narrow. Defeating Moriarty and his network is a broader goal.”

“But if you _can_ help, you must!” John insisted.

Hamish shook his head. “No, John. I must protect _you_. That’s the only thing I care about.” And John knew this was true, and didn’t bother making a humanitarian appeal.

“Is Moriarty dead?” he asked instead.

“That was the rumor,” Hamish replied, “but I think that seems a little too simple.”

“Moriarty scares the s—t out of me,” John admitted. He went a little pale just thinking about it. “He’s so brilliant, always one step ahead even of Sherlock, willing to sacrifice anyone, and just to play a game, just a sick game—“ He cut himself off before he choked.

“Does he scare you more than Papa?” Hamish asked carefully, and John’s head snapped up.

“Papa… Papa wouldn’t scare me today,” he asserted fiercely. “If I met him today I would—“ His hands clenched and unclenched. “I could stop him today. I could stop Simmerson today. I could stop any of them today, because they preyed on weaker people, and I’m equal to them now. But I could never be equal to Moriarty,” he went on softly. “Anything I could think of, he would already be prepared for…”

“Yes,” Hamish agreed. “I see your point.”

John shook his head. “Is Sherlock okay?” he wanted to know. “Where is he? Where am _I_?”

“Sherlock is fine, I suppose,” Hamish answered, perhaps not very reassuring. “Actually, John, it’s been about eight months since Sherlock’s fake suicide.” He paused to let this sink in. “I took over as soon as you saw him—what you thought was him—on the sidewalk. You’ve been dormant since then. I walked away and went into hiding myself to protect you. We’ve been living in Paris for the last several months.”

John blinked as he thought this over. “You were hiding us from—Moriarty?”

“Not really,” Hamish admitted. “More from Sherlock and Mycroft. I knew it had just been a trick—had to be, I mean—and I was very angry with Sherlock for doing that to you. To all of us.”

“But he did it to protect—“ Hamish cocked his head to the side, giving John a long look. Hamish was in John’s head, he knew what John had been feeling.

“It was very cruel,” Hamish judged calmly. “He had better alternatives.”

John was quiet for a long moment, changing his position in bed and pulling the blankets up more around himself. Hamish thought about pointing out that John couldn’t really be _cold_ in his own mind; he could just think about being warm and it would happen. But that seemed distracting.

“I don’t think he meant to be cruel, though,” John finally said, looking over at Hamish.

“No,” Hamish agreed with a sigh.

“I think it must have been hard on him,” John went on thoughtfully. “To seem like such a failure in public, a fraud. And he knew I would be upset, and Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade…”

“I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Hamish tried to acknowledge, but his tone was cool.

John frowned suddenly. “Wait—do you mean that for eight months, Sherlock hasn’t known where I am, or even if I’m alive?” The idea seemed to alarm him.

“Well, yes—“

John scrambled out of bed suddenly, looking around for his clothes. “We have to tell him!” he insisted. “Is he in contact with anyone? He must be in contact with Mycroft at least. We’ve got to go back to London and see—“

“John, there’s no need to get dressed,” Hamish pointed out mildly.

John paused pulling a jumper over his head. “Oh… Right. In my mind. Well—let’s wake my body up and get moving!”

Hamish hesitated. “John—“

“Look, I know you’re angry at Sherlock,” John cut in urgently. “I am, too. But it’s not right, letting _him_ think _I_ might be dead or something. And—well, you know how I feel about him.”

“I do,” Hamish confirmed. “Actually Mycroft tracked us down yesterday, in Paris. Right now your body is asleep at the Holmes family estate.”

John’s eyes widened. “You’ve seen Sherlock?” he wanted to know. Hamish nodded and John threw himself back on the bed, boneless with relief. “Thank G-d!” He rolled over to stare at Hamish. “How is he?”

He didn’t really know how to answer that. “He’s… Well, he looked tired and like he hadn’t been eating properly,” he judged.

“I’m not surprised, if it’s been a string of investigations and no one to look after him.”

“His manner was relieved but also uneasy and penitent, given that I wouldn’t let him speak to anyone else,” Hamish added.

“That’s a difficult combination to imagine,” John admitted. “Oh, how are the others? I mean—well, I guess I haven’t been around for months…”

“The others have been out and about some,” Hamish described. “Charlie quite likes Paris, actually. Some of them are more upset about Sherlock’s trick than others.”

“They all know it was just a trick, though, right?” John checked.

“Yes. There’s a new alter now, Jean-Paul,” Hamish went on. “He doesn’t know about anyone else, thinks he’s a native Parisian. Musically-inclined bartender. I thought that was the best way to deal with the situation.”

John stared at him. “That’s _amazing_ ,” he declared. “You can just make a new alter like that? How did you make him think he was raised in Paris?”

“I watched movies set in Paris, with characters of a variety of ages,” Hamish shrugged. “I also read a number of novels and travel guides. Those formed the basis of his memories.”

“That’s so incredible,” John said. He seemed positive about the idea. “What about the music? Does he—sing?” He cringed slightly at the idea.

“He plays the piano,” Hamish corrected. “I didn’t put that in, it developed autonomously like Saucy’s writing and Charlie’s art. You’re very talented, John.”

“No, I’ve never—“ John stopped his denial when Hamish gave him a look. “Well, I’ll take your word for it.” He paused, then added, “I really ought to thank you, for protecting me all these years, when I didn’t even know you existed.”

Hamish was slightly startled by this. “Oh—no, you don’t have to _thank_ me,” he asserted. “You’re the one who _made_ me. It would be like a warrior thanking his sword.”

John smiled faintly at the metaphor. “I’m sure many warriors have thanked their swords,” he replied. “Honestly, I can’t—it’s hard for me to imagine that you and the others are really part of me. All the creativity, and the intellect—it just doesn’t seem like it could come from me,” he confessed. “Surely you must—get bored? Or frustrated, with the life I have?”

Now it was Hamish’s turn to blink at him. “We’re not real, John,” he finally said, perhaps a bit bluntly.

“Oh.”

“We’re not fully realized individuals, I mean,” he tried to explain more gently. “It’s nice that Sherlock tried to encourage our individuality, but that’s only going to go so far. We’re happy if _you’re_ happy, John.”

“I’ve been happy lately,” John took the opportunity to say. “With Sherlock. Because of Sherlock. Even if he is an insensitive git sometimes. But he cares about _all_ of us. All of me? Have you ever met anyone else you could say that about?”

“No,” Hamish admitted.

“The others still like him?”

“Yes. _I_ still like him,” Hamish claimed. “I’m just very angry at him.”

“Well, I’m angry, too,” John agreed. “The two things can coexist. Apparently I can have _several_ different opinions on the same topic simultaneously,” he added with a smirk.

Hamish returned it. “Point taken.”

John looked around. “So… Can I talk to Sherlock?”

“Yes, of course, if you want to. It’s the middle of the night, though,” Hamish reminded him, checking his watch. Somehow he had a watch with the current time while in John’s head. “Maybe wait until morning? Your body could use some more rest.”

“Oh right.” John frowned. “Do I need to be asleep for that?”

Hamish knew what he meant. “No, this is fine.”

“In that case, since I’m awake, do you think I could meet the others?” John asked tentatively. “Could I meet Jamie? What would that be like?”

“Jamie would appear as you remember him, a child,” Hamish explained. “You can certainly meet all of them, I think they would like that. Well, maybe not Jean-Paul just yet, he’s going to need some careful handling.”

John winced. “Yes, I can see how that conversation would be awkward.” Then he chuckled a little bit. “That’s just so incredible! I don’t even speak French. He must, though.”

“Impeccably,” Hamish confirmed. “French really isn’t that hard to learn.”

“But I can meet Jamie?” John repeated, hopeful but slightly anxious at the same time. “What will I look like to him? I don’t want to confuse him.”

Hamish had considered this possibility before. “I think you could remember yourself as a child, and appear to him as his brother Johnny, his playmate,” he suggested, and John looked away, the memories overwhelming him. “All day long Jamie plays with his brother, and never thinks of anything bad,” he went on, trying to be more soothing. “Well, right now he’s a little sad, because he misses Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson and the pets, but he doesn’t really understand the passage of—“

“S—t,” John interrupted suddenly. “I forgot about the pets! What happened to them?”

“I’m told they’re fine, still at Baker Street with Mrs. Hudson.”

“You don’t really _get_ the pets, do you?” John surmised.

“No,” Hamish admitted freely. “They are things outside oneself to love and take care of. Thus they make one vulnerable. A chink in the armor.”

John smiled at him. “That’s what it means to love _anyone_. It’s a scary thing to do.”

“Yes,” Hamish said slowly.

“Because when you love someone, they can really hurt you. But that’s the risk you take, for the reward of being loved in return. Hamish?” John prompted after a moment, when the other man didn’t say anything.

“Hmm? Oh, I was just thinking,” he finally replied.

“This does seem to be the place for that.”

“I’ve always just concentrated on protecting you,” Hamish went on. “It goes against my nature to let you do something that might hurt you. You _have_ really been hurt,” he insisted. “If you didn’t care about Sherlock so much, his apparent death wouldn’t have affected you so.”

“Risk and reward,” John repeated. “I loved Jamie so much… But his death made _you_ , didn’t it?” he wondered. “And you made the others. I wouldn’t be without any of you now.”

“Yes,” Hamish agreed, not sure exactly what he was agreeing to. When it came to love he was out of his depth, a curious sensation. He’d known so little love, it didn’t seem to be worth considering.

“But I would like to meet Jamie and the others,” John reiterated, starting to get a little bit excited about the idea. “I think I would like to meet them regularly. Do you think I could do that?”

“Well, yes, of course,” Hamish promised. “It’s _your_ head.”

“And I would like it if _you_ came out more,” John went on, a bit more hesitantly.

Hamish was equally uncertain. “Well, I don’t know—“

“Please?” John asked. “Sherlock would like it so much. He’s very fond of you.”

Hamish was not sure how he felt about that. “He’s fondest of _you_.”

“Still.”

“Well… I’ll look into it,” Hamish hedged, and John beamed at him. “Alright, Jamie usually inhabits a yard much like the one where you grew up. When you get there, take a few minutes to get used to it, so you’re not upset when he arrives…”

**

Five minutes after Hamish sent Sherlock a text saying _Let’s talk_ , someone was pounding on his door and trying to turn the knob. Calmly Hamish moved the chair blocking the door, unlocked it, and opened it to see Sherlock standing there. He was wearing the same clothes from the day before, his hair was more mussed than usual, and his eyes were bloodshot. It seemed like he hadn’t shaved in a while, either, and the scruff adorning his chin and upper lip was, intriguingly, ginger. Hamish tried not to be distracted by this, which was surprisingly difficult.

“You said you wanted to talk,” Sherlock finally prompted, waving his mobile in a slightly unhinged manner.

“Have you been to bed since yesterday?” Hamish questioned.

“Irrelevant!” Sherlock insisted, which Hamish took as a ‘no.’

“Take a shower, change your clothes, and eat something,” Hamish instructed. “Then we’ll talk.” He could practically see the spinning tops in Sherlock’s brain wobble chaotically in frustration. “Sherlock, the others want to talk to you,” he went on, and the other man’s expression became touchingly hopeful—if you were touched by things like that, anyway. “But I don’t want them to see you in your current state, you’ll frighten them.”

This argument seemed more palatable to him. “Shower, change clothes… What was the other thing?” Sherlock asked.

“Eat.”

“Is that negotiable?”

“No.” He started to protest. “You’re wasting time,” Hamish pointed out coolly.

“Right.” Sherlock hurried away, and Hamish went down to breakfast.

Sherlock appeared as he was finishing up. Mycroft, who had been informed of the plan, raised an eyebrow in surprise that it was actually working so far. He raised the other when Sherlock sat down at the table with a plate positively heaped with food. Hamish tried to pretend he wasn’t watching Sherlock, but finally had to intervene.

“Sherlock, you don’t have to make yourself sick,” he noted, as the other man looked slightly green contemplating a piece of toast. “Do you want to switch with me?”

Hamish’s plate contained the remains of toast, eggs, sausage, and fruit, all of it with teeth or fork marks. “Yes,” agreed Sherlock readily, so they did, and Sherlock dug into the half-eaten food more comfortably.

“You coddle him,” Mycroft accused lightly, though to be honest he was glad to see it.

Hamish met his gaze unnervingly. “I never coddle,” he replied seriously. “I get the job done.” Mycroft could see the truth of that in the way Sherlock cleaned his plate.

“Can we talk now?” he asked impatiently.

“Yes,” Hamish agreed. “May we use your study again?” he asked Mycroft.

“Of course. May I join you?”

Hamish shrugged and looked at Sherlock, who had already gotten up from the table. “Whatever,” he told his brother. “Are we going to do this or not?”

Hamish stood as well. “We are,” he promised as they headed to the study. “But I advise you to calm down. Some of them are upset with you and you’ll need to be patient.”

“Can I talk to Indigo?” Sherlock requested.

“We’ll go in the order I think best,” Hamish refuted, refusing to change his boundaries for Sherlock. “Indigo will undoubtedly be near the end.”

“Has he been awake yet?” Sherlock wanted to know. “Does he know I’m alive?” Hamish merely gazed at him, finished explaining the rules. “Fine,” Sherlock sighed, giving in. He threw himself down in a chair. “Please. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Hamish replied dryly, settling on the couch. Mycroft took a seat unobtrusively at his desk.

“Thank _you_ ,” Sherlock returned unexpectedly, meeting Hamish gaze. The man nodded once, then vanished. Sherlock grinned broadly at the person who took his place. “Charlie!”

“Bet you never thought you’d be glad to see _me_ ,” the alter cracked.

Sherlock did not confirm or deny this. “Can I sit by you?” he asked immediately.

“Well, alright,” Charlie allowed, and Sherlock sprang over to his side. “No mushy stuff, though,” he insisted when Sherlock tried to hug him.

“Not even a little?”

“Well… Do you want to have sex?” Charlie offered. “I’m not asking _you_ ,” he added pointedly to Mycroft, who had made a noise of derision. “What’s Bird Brain doing here, anyway?” he grumbled to Sherlock, allowing him to put his arm around his shoulder. “Thought this was a private party.”

Sherlock laughed at the insult to his brother, mainly just a release of nervous tension. “We’d better not have sex just yet, Hamish is rather upset with me and I haven’t spoken to Indigo yet,” he admitted. “How are you? Are you angry with me?”

Charlie looked as if he really didn’t want to say, which made Sherlock feel worse—usually Charlie wasn’t shy about naming things that bothered him. So this must have been _really_ bad. “Well, the others were upset,” he deflected. “Jamie misses you, won’t shut up about it. Saucy and Sleepy have been unbearable bores. That left me with basically only Fury to talk to. So, yeah, I’m angry I had to put up with grunting for conversation for the last eight months.”

“Well, I’m sorry it happened this way, Charlie,” Sherlock told him sincerely, beginning the first of his anticipated apologies. “I thought I was doing the right thing, to protect everyone.”

“Yeah, your judgment was way off on that one,” Charlie decided. “Still, I liked the element of big drama. I totally bought it—I mean, smashed on the sidewalk? Very clever. Much harder to fake than, say, jumping into the river.”

Sherlock blinked at him, alarmed. “You saw it happen? I thought Indigo—“

“Oh, we were all tuned in,” Charlie explained, which was not welcome news to Sherlock. “Not Jamie, of course, but everyone else. Such a nice little speech, thought it might be your last, so Hamish let us eavesdrop.”

“Did he.”

“So is this f—k Moriarty still alive or what?” Charlie went on darkly. “Like to get my hands on him, think I could take the smirk off his face.” He grinned nastily. “Got an opening on your superhero team for someone with my skill set?”

Sherlock glanced over at Mycroft, who seemed rather intrigued by the idea. “We might,” he told Charlie hesitantly. “I don’t know if Hamish really wants to—“

“That wanker isn’t the only one with a vote, you know,” Charlie insisted.

“Well, Indigo, then—“

Charlie huffed sharply. “Well, fine.” He seemed to take Indigo as a higher authority than Hamish, which was comforting to Sherlock—he didn’t think _Indigo_ would want him killed, no matter how upset he was. “The offer stands, anyway.”

“Thank you.”

“How’s my lizard, then?” Charlie wanted to know.

“Mrs. Hudson’s been taking care of him,” Sherlock promised, pulling out his phone. “Here’s a picture of him, she took it yesterday.”

“Aw, he’s grown,” Charlie observed, a mixture of pleasure and disappointment. He was quiet for a moment, then suddenly sniffled.

Sherlock’s eyes widened. “Charlie?” This was about the last alter he expected tears from.

“I just missed him, that’s all,” he claimed, indicating Alexander the Great. “There’s not a lot of people who like me, you know. Er, lizards.”

Sherlock smiled a little and squeezed his shoulder. “I’m sure he missed you, too. You’ll see him again soon,” he promised, then hastily added, “Well, if… all of you decide to stay, I mean.”

Charlie tried to shake off his momentary lapse into emotion. “Well, I _did_ like Paris,” he said lightly. “Great city for an artist. Got a lot of new sketches to show you.”

“I’d love to see them sometime.”

“Hey, got a new alter, did you know?” Charlie went on. “A Frenchie. We’re not supposed to talk to him though,” he added, as if this indicated snootiness on someone’s part.

“I heard, I can’t wait to meet him,” Sherlock replied hopefully.

“Well,” Charlie sighed after a moment, “I gotta go. There’s quite a line for this seat, you know.” He looked pointedly at Sherlock’s hand on his shoulder. “I think Sleepy’s up next.”

“Oh. Right.” Sherlock reluctantly went back to his chair, knowing Sleepy’s dislike of physical contact.

“Good luck with the little bat,” Charlie snorted. “Glad you weren’t really squashed on the sidewalk,” he added at the last moment.

“Thanks, I’m glad to—“ Charlie left before Sherlock could finish and in his place came Sleepy, who started out by drawing his feet up to the couch and burying his face against his knees. There was something terribly hopeless about the gesture. “Sleepy? Sleepy, are you—“ Sherlock reached a hand out but stopped when the alter looked up.

“Where is Sherlock?” Sleepy asked plaintively, and since Sherlock was right there, he had a bad feeling about this. “Where is Cat?”

That, Sherlock could understand. “Cat is at home with Mrs. Hudson,” he said, holding out his phone again. “See? She took this picture yesterday.”

Sleepy leaned around to gaze at the picture without touching the phone. Then he stood abruptly. “Where is Sherlock and Cat?” he repeated, circling Sherlock’s chair. “Where are we?”

“Sleepy, it’s alright, we’re safe,” Sherlock tried to assure him as the alter kept walking aimlessly around the furniture. “We’re at my brother’s house—you remember my brother, don’t you?” he added, a bit desperate for a response that made sense.

“Sherlock fell,” Sleepy went on sadly. “Wasn’t someone protecting Sherlock? Where are we? Where is Sherlock and Cat?” He sat down on the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees again and rocking slightly.

Sherlock didn’t understand what he was supposed to do. “Sleepy, I’m right here,” he said helplessly.

“I _think_ ,” Mycroft suggested from the side, “that he’s reenacting.”

Somehow this seemed reasonable to Sherlock, given Sleepy’s somewhat stunted worldview, and he quickly sat down on the floor next to the alter, being careful not to touch him. “Were you scared, Sleepy?” he asked. “I know you don’t like being in new places.”

“I protect _him_ at night,” Sleepy replied, a bit defiantly. “I cannot be scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared sometimes,” Sherlock asserted. “Is the sunlight bothering you? Do you want me to close the curtains?”

Sleepy sighed loudly. “I miss Sherlock and Cat.”

“I missed you, too,” Sherlock told him. “I’m sure Cat missed you.”

“UnderHim said it was just a trick.” Finally the alter made eye contact with Sherlock, if only for a moment.

“Yes, it was just a trick,” Sherlock agreed. “I was trying to trick people who wanted to hurt us.”

“And us,” Sleepy added. “You tried to trick _us_.”

“Yes,” Sherlock confirmed straightforwardly. “I didn’t realize you would leave, I thought you would stay and everyone would believe I was dead because—“ Why did this plan sound so stupid all of a sudden?

“Because we were sad,” Sleepy supplied.

“Yes.”

“I don’t like this plan,” Sleepy told him, with some irritation. “Where is Cat? Where is Sherlock? Why are we someplace new? I want to go home.”

“Home, to Baker Street?” Sherlock checked, pleased the alter thought of it that way. “Well, it wasn’t _my_ idea for you to leave.”

“UnderHim said,” Sleepy acknowledged. He said nothing else, just stared at Sherlock over his knees.

“I’m sorry, Sleepy,” Sherlock finally told him. He tried to remember what he’d said to Charlie. “I’m sorry it happened like this. I thought I was protecting you.”

“ _I_ protect,” Sleepy countered, as if Sherlock just didn’t quite get it, and the other man smiled a little.

“Sometimes _you_ need protection, too, Sleepy.”

A determined look came over the alter and he sat up, stretching his legs out more. “I will protect _him_ from the ones who come in the night,” he told Sherlock firmly. “ _We_ will protect.”

Amazingly, he seemed to mean, him and Sherlock together. “Yes, we will,” Sherlock agreed. He offered the alter his hand and after a moment of consideration Sleepy took it, causing Sherlock to grin. Sleepy started to smile too, his demented teeth-baring expression, but then suddenly he was gone and the person who arrived was _not_ smiling. In fact, he reached up and smacked Sherlock across the face, then flung his clasped hand away and scrambled up, turning his back on him.

“I’m not speaking to you!” Saucy declared hotly.

Sherlock sighed and rose to his feet, rubbing his stinging cheek. He stole a glance at his brother and knew Mycroft wasn’t sure whether he should be concerned, or amused. “Saucy—“

“No!”

Well, this was going to be awkward, if the alter was just going to spend his apparently brief time here not speaking to Sherlock.

Then Saucy spun on him, eyes blazing. “Don’t you even care?!” he accused. “You’ve probably been glad to be rid of us!”

“No, not at all—“

“Liar!” Saucy put his back to Sherlock once more. “You’re a lying b-----d and I don’t want to speak to you ever again!”

“Um—I thought Hamish said you _did_ want to speak to me—“ Sherlock tried, hesitantly.

“Only to tell you what an awful person you are, and that I’m not speaking to you ever again, EVER!”

Sherlock looked over at Mycroft, who had definitely gone over to the ‘amused’ side. Well, that wasn’t nice; Saucy was really upset.

Sherlock stepped up behind him and started to put his hands on the alter’s shoulders. “Saucy, I’m very—“

Saucy whirled around. “Don’t touch me!” he snapped, then flung his arms around Sherlock and buried his face against his shoulder.

“Okay,” Sherlock agreed, with great uncertainty.

“You’re such a horrible person!” Saucy sobbed, squeezing him tightly, and Sherlock let his arms drape loosely around the other man. “Why would you do an awful thing like that? All those things you said, and then making it look like you’d—like you—“ He couldn’t bring himself to say it, it seemed.

Sherlock kissed his temple and lightly rubbed his back. “I’m sorry, Saucy,” he told him. “I wanted to protect you. I thought it was the only way.”

“Well it was bloody stupid!” Saucy insisted. “I just—“ He swallowed hard. “No one was ever nice to us before,” he said in a soft voice that seemed to squeeze the air from Sherlock’s lungs. “Maybe the others don’t care… No one was ever _kind_ to me.” Suddenly he shoved Sherlock away. “And you had to go and ruin it, you big brute!”

“Well, I—um—I feel really badly about it, Saucy,” Sherlock reiterated. “I’m so sorry you were upset.”

“Not unpredictable, though, was it?” he shot back pointedly.

“No.”

Saucy embraced him again and Sherlock tried not to sigh. This alter was just very illogical and emotional, that was normal for him. “Oh, I was so sad!” Saucy told him, finally letting Sherlock sit down on the couch with the alter snuggled in his arms. “I cried and cried all the time! And I couldn’t write anything at all for a long time, then it was only tragic romances with vampires who awaken to find that everyone they’ve ever loved has died!”

Mycroft could no longer restrain himself and snorted. Surprised, Saucy turned around. “Who’s that?” he asked with interest, hurriedly wiping his eyes and fussing with his hair.

Sherlock suddenly remembered they’d never met. “Saucy, this is my brother, Mycroft,” he introduced. “We’re staying at his house.”

“Oh, your _brother_ ,” Saucy repeated, giving Mycroft the eye. “Quite the family resemblance. And rich, too, did you say?”

Mycroft’s eyes widened in something like alarm, which made Sherlock chuckle even as he admonished the alter. “Saucy! You were just saying how heartbroken you were over me!”

Saucy cuddled up to him again. “I was, I was,” he insisted. “Are you jealous? You don’t have to be jealous!”

Sherlock put his arm around Saucy more comfortably. “Am I _meant_ to be jealous?” He could never tell.

“Well, I think you _ought_ to be,” Saucy proclaimed, contrarily. “There were lots of handsome blokes in Paris, you know.”

“I’m sure.”

“I didn’t snog a single one, though!” he assured him.

“Well, good,” Sherlock replied, apparently with the right level of possessiveness to make Saucy melt against him. “I don’t want you snogging strange French blokes.”

“Oh, did you know we have a new alter?” Saucy asked him suddenly. “He’s French. Jean-Paul,” he added in a dreamy tone. “He’s a musician, he’s so _soulful_.”

Sherlock was not equipped to handle alters having crushes on each other, at least not without doing further research first. “Oh. Yes, I’d heard—“

But now Saucy was nuzzling his ear. “When can we be alone?” he murmured leadingly. “Or did you want your brother to—“

“Definitely not!” Sherlock replied firmly.

“Just checking. So when—“

Oh, he _had_ missed Saucy, frankly. The transport had gotten used to having its needs fulfilled on a far more regular basis with Indigo and company around. “Um, hang on,” Sherlock said reluctantly, detaching himself slightly. “I really ought to speak to Indigo first—“

This was not really a surprise to Saucy. “Well, fine,” he huffed. “How about a kiss, though?”

Having him _right there_ and more than willing was too much temptation for Sherlock. “Well, maybe just one—“ That was all the invitation Saucy needed.

Sherlock was just thinking he really ought to stop—Mycroft was watching after all, ugh—when suddenly the kiss changed, became hard and aggressive and animalistic, and Sherlock pulled back in alarm. The alter he faced snarled at him. “Fury—“

The alter sprang up, pacing tensely in front of the couch, and Sherlock wasn’t sure if he ought to apologize or not. The idea of kissing Fury was… more than a little exciting to him, frankly, but he didn’t know how the alter would feel about it. And this definitely was not the right time to discuss it. “Uh, Fury, Saucy was just here—“ It wasn’t really _his_ fault, anyway.

Fury growled dismissively somehow, so Sherlock decided not to worry about the kiss right now. With Fury there were other things to worry about, and Sherlock stood to address him more forcefully.

“Fury, sit down, please,” Sherlock said firmly. The alter was breathing hard, like he was working himself up about something, and the look he gave Sherlock was, well, furious. “Fury, sit down and we’ll talk about—“

He saw the swing coming and really _could_ have ducked, but he didn’t in the end, and Fury’s punch sent him stumbling back into the couch.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft called, rising from his desk, and the eyes of the vicious creature turned on him instead.

“No, it’s alright,” Sherlock claimed. Actually Fury hadn’t hit him that hard, he realized. “Fury.” The alter’s attention went back to him. “That’s my brother. He’s a friend. Help me up.” He held out his hand.

Fury took it without hesitation and pulled Sherlock to his feet, not letting him go after. His eyes blazed. “Fury, I’m sorry, I was trying to protect you—“ Sherlock began hurriedly.

“I kill to protect,” Fury rasped menacingly.

Sherlock was not sure which way this was going to go. “Does that include me?” he asked.

“Yes,” Fury confirmed, and Sherlock’s eyebrows rose at the threat. “I kill to protect _you_ ,” Fury clarified.

“Oh.” Sherlock was oddly touched by this.

“Don’t kill yourself again,” Fury advised with a snarl.

“No, I shouldn’t want to.”

“We will hunt down the enemy,” Fury promised, “and I will rip his heart out.” He bared his teeth in a threatening sort of smile.

It didn’t bother Sherlock, though, as he’d had much the same thoughts himself. “Yes, we will,” he agreed. He wasn’t sure he’d really gotten his apology in, though. “I’m sorry I hurt you, I thought I was doing the right—“

He’d probably heard it before from the others. “We hurt to help sometimes,” Fury growled. “Even ourselves.”

Sherlock nodded slowly, thinking instantly of Indigo’s parents, whom Fury had been created to kill. Well, it was nice that someone understood his reasoning. Er, sort of. “Okay.” What else did one say to Fury. “Um, did you enjoy Paris?” At that, the alter rolled his eyes and vanished, leaving Hamish standing there.

Sherlock relaxed considerably, as did Mycroft. “Interesting fellow,” the elder Holmes commented, clearing his throat.

Hamish gently prodded the red mark on Sherlock’s cheek as the other man winced. “You’d better put some ice on that,” he advised, sounding sympathetic at least.

“It’s fine,” Sherlock dismissed, predictably.

“Well, I did warn you he might hit you,” Hamish claimed.

“No, you didn’t!” Sherlock sputtered, throwing himself down on the couch. All these alters in just a few minutes, and he hadn’t even gotten to the ones he was really worried about yet.

“Well, I warned Mycroft,” Hamish corrected, and Sherlock immediately shot his brother a dirty look.

“Oh really!”

Clearly this was beneath Mycroft’s notice. “I’ve only counted five alters, including you,” he pointed out to Hamish. “There should be three left.”

“The person you call Indigo is not an alter,” Hamish countered swiftly. “He’s the original.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Sherlock agreed, giving Mycroft a pointed look.

“Also Jean-Paul is a bit tricky,” Hamish admitted. “I suggest a long-term strategy of gradual acclimation.”

Sherlock looked up suddenly. “Does that mean you’re going to _stay_ for the long-term?” he surmised with some excitement.

Hamish clearly didn’t want to give a definitive answer. “Two more to go,” he said instead. “Are you ready to see Jamie?”

Sherlock stood and straightened his clothes. “Yes, alright.”

The entire body transformed, becoming at once more relaxed _and_ more energetic, and the face went from controlled and watchful to open and beaming. “Uncle Sherlock!” Jamie exclaimed in delight, and threw his arms around him.

Sherlock hugged back. “Jamie! I’m glad to see you. Are you alright?”

Jamie pulled back, too antsy to stay in one place for long. “Oh, I’m alright,” he agreed. “I’ve been away on a trip. But I missed you! And Monkey. Where’s Monkey?” He looked around and saw Mycroft behind his desk, and his expression faltered.

“You remember my brother?” Sherlock prompted. Good manners were important, or so people told him.

“Oh. Yes,” Jamie nodded. “How do you do?”

“Fine, thank you, Jamie,” Mycroft replied politely, as Sherlock rolled his eyes at the pointlessness of the exchange. “You’re at my house right now, but I believe Monkey is safe at Baker Street with Mrs. Hudson. Isn’t he, Sherlock?”

“Yes, here’s a picture,” Sherlock confirmed, handing his phone to Jamie.

“Aw, Monkey! When can we go home and see him?” Jamie wanted to know. “I have lots of stuff to tell him, and I want to teach him to jump in the air and catch a Frisbee like I saw dogs doing in Paris.”

“Can a basset hound do that?” Sherlock asked dubiously, taking his phone back before Jamie could drop it (again). “Well, anyway, it’s up to Indigo and Hamish about going home. I hope you’ll be doing it soon, though.”

Jamie was disappointed by this news. “I want to go home, though!” he protested, his voice perilously close to a whine. “I don’t like Paris, it’s cold and smells funny, and there’s no one like Mrs. Hudson to make biscuits for me!”

“Jamie,” Sherlock chided. “Come here.” They sat down on the couch with Sherlock’s arm around his shoulders. “You know Indigo gets to decide these things.” Jamie nodded with a sigh. “Are you okay otherwise?”

“Well, it’s just dull,” Jamie complained. “There’s no one to play with, and Uncle UnderHim says I can’t put my drawings up on the fridge, and I haven’t my books you got me.”

If Jean-Paul didn’t know about the alters, Sherlock realized, then they were all sort of hiding out in his body, and had to conceal the evidence of their activities, like Saucy’s writing (sounded like a rather terrifying thing to stumble upon anyway) and Charlie and Jamie’s art.

“Why did we have to go on a trip without you?” Jamie wanted to know.

Sherlock hesitated to answer. “Well—er—I suppose I did something that upset people,” he finally said, feeling lame. “Indigo and Hamish and everyone. And they wanted to have a holiday from me for a bit.”

“Oh. I’ve never been on holiday before,” Jamie commented. “I thought it would be better.”

“Well, if Indigo wants,” Sherlock hedged, “in a while perhaps we can go on a real holiday together.”

Jamie was very excited about this idea. “Whoo-hoo!” he exulted, making both Sherlock and Mycroft wince with his volume. “Can we bring Monkey on holiday, too?” he begged. “He would love it!”

“Is that done?” Sherlock asked. “Well, I suppose if it’s possible—“ Jamie made a noise again and hugged him.

“I missed Monkey so much!” he repeated. “And I missed you, too, Uncle Sherlock.”

“I missed _you_ , Jamie,” Sherlock admitted, holding him close. “I’m very sorry we had to be separated.”

“Well, that’s all over now, isn’t it?” Jamie asked. “If you tell Uncle Indigo you’re sorry, I’m sure it will be alright. He’s quite fond of you.”

Sherlock smiled a little. “Oh, do you think?”

“Yes,” Jamie agreed. He tipped his head to the side. “Oh, Uncle UnderHim says it’s time for me to go now,” he conveyed sadly.

“You’ll come back to see me soon,” Sherlock suggested hopefully.

“Alright. Good-bye, Uncle Mycroft!” Jamie remembered. “Good-bye, Uncle Sherlock.”

“Good-bye, Jamie.”

Then Jamie disappeared, and the body closed his eyes and leaned back against the couch, relaxed as if asleep. Sherlock held his breath, waiting to see who would appear next, desperately hoping it was Indigo.

Then the eyes fluttered and blinked open, looking around with some confusion. They lit on Sherlock, and Indigo’s first response was to smile. Unable to stop himself, Sherlock swooped in and kissed him.

Indigo was surprised at first, but then his mouth opened under Sherlock’s and his hand came up to his head, tangling through the dark curls. All Indigo could think about was how wonderfully _alive_ Sherlock was—warm, energetic, his heart throbbing under Indigo’s hand that rested on his chest. A noise to the side distracted him and he realized he ought to try breathing a little bit, and he turned his face away slightly, leaving Sherlock to nuzzle along his jaw and neck.

“G-d,” Indigo sighed.

A throat cleared, louder—the sound Indigo had heard before—and he saw it was coming from Mycroft, who sat at his desk looking almost comically disapproving. Well, the last time Indigo had seen his master, he’d thought he was dead, so if he wanted to sit here and snog in front of his brother, Indigo wasn’t going to object.

At last Sherlock pulled back, his hands still gripping Indigo. His sky-blue eyes blazed in his pale face, boring into the other man. “I’m so sorry,” he said, slowly and deliberately. “I thought I was protecting you. I thought it was the only way.”

Indigo smiled at him again. He couldn’t _stop_ smiling, in fact, which seemed to confuse Sherlock. “I know,” he finally told him. “I’m sure you _did_ protect me.” Sherlock blinked, unaccustomed to this reaction. Then Indigo frowned and turned Sherlock’s face slightly. “What happened to your eye?” he demanded, seeing the redness.

“Fury hit me. It’s nothing,” Sherlock claimed, forcing his head back so he could look at Indigo.

His expression was dismayed. “He _hit_ you?” Indigo repeated with alarm. “What happened to, ‘to hurt the master is death’? You need some ice.” He started to look around.

“Please stay here,” Sherlock requested when he tried to get up. “It’s nothing. He didn’t mean anything bad by it.”

“Didn’t mean anything bad?” Indigo said angrily. “He shouldn’t—“ Then suddenly he felt like he understood what Fury had meant, and how he needed to express himself that way but had no intention of ever doing it again, because he wanted to protect Sherlock just as he protected the others.

“Indigo?” Sherlock prompted, when he suddenly went silent.

“Oh, it’s alright,” Indigo assured him, refocusing on the present. “I think Hamish was just telling me about Fury.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened. “Hamish spoke to you? Has that ever happened before?”

Indigo grinned suddenly, eager to share his news with someone who would understand. “I met them!” he blurted with excitement. “Last night, I think. Is it Wednesday? I woke up, like I’d been asleep in bed, and I met Hamish!”

Sherlock was satisfyingly astounded. “How? Where were you?”

“Well apparently my body was asleep in—“ He looked around. “Is this your family estate?”

“Yes.”

“—but it was like I woke up in Baker Street,” Indigo tried to explain.

“Baker Street?”

“Yes, in your room,” Indigo confirmed.

“Our room,” Sherlock corrected, and Indigo smiled.

“Our room. And Hamish was there, just sitting on the bed.”

Sherlock looked so disappointed at having missed this, even though it had taken place inside Indigo’s head. “What did he look like?” he wanted to know. “Did he look like _you_?”

Indigo blinked as he tried to remember. “No—hmm, I don’t think I could tell you what he looked like,” he admitted. “I mean, I knew it was him, and I knew his expressions and body language, but I can’t—I don’t know, I just can’t picture his face.”

“But then what happened?” Sherlock prodded eagerly.

“Well, he told me you were alive and it was just a trick, and that was eight months ago, and we’d been hiding in Paris pretending to be a bartender while you were hunting down Moriarty’s criminal network.” Indigo was laughing by the end, because it all sounded so absurd, and he was so glad Sherlock was actually alive. Impulsively he slid his arms around the other man, pulling him closer.

“Yes, just a trick,” Sherlock agreed, rubbing his back. “I thought—I should’ve asked Hamish to help me,” he admitted. “I wanted to solve it all myself, like I always do, although actually you help quite a lot you know, not really direct contributions but sort of inspiring my deductions—“

Indigo chuckled again. “I know, Hamish explained all that,” he confirmed. “I’m actually not sure he _would_ have helped you before, even if you’d asked. But I think he will now, if you want him to.”

“I would like that very much,” Sherlock agreed. “Several of the others offered to help as well.”

“Oh, I met the others!” Indigo relayed excitedly. “Last night, after I met Hamish. First I met Jamie, and it was like I was a child again, only our childhood was never that carefree, and we ran around the woods playing.” He paused to recall the memory, or dream, or whatever it was.

“Wait—is Jamie your _brother_?” Mycroft sputtered from the side. In all their chats Sherlock had failed to mention this rather important piece of information.

Indigo had forgotten he was there, frankly, but seeing Jamie again—knowing he could go back to him whenever he wanted—made him more eager to share his memories than to conceal them. “Yes, Jamie was my twin brother,” he told Mycroft, surprised at how it didn’t hurt so much to think about him. “He died when we were ten.”

“How can he be an _alter_ , then?” Mycroft demanded.

“Stop being so logical about it,” Sherlock advised him. “You met Jamie. What about the others? What was that _like_?”

“It was like—“ Now that it was time to tell his story Indigo wasn’t sure he could put it into words. “It was like a really bizarre cocktail party,” he tried to describe.

“All cocktail parties are really bizarre,” Sherlock dismissed. To him, anyway.

Indigo laughed again. It felt good to laugh, like he hadn’t in a long time—well, he _hadn’t_ , actually, even if you took out the eight months he’d been asleep, because before that Sherlock had been so concentrated on finding Moriarty.

He didn’t want to think about that right now. Instead he tipped back into Sherlock’s arms, arranging himself so he could still see him, know he was there. “It was incredible,” he went on, as Sherlock waited to hear about the alters. “It was in this sort of featureless grey room, and everyone was standing around talking, except Fury was growling in the corner and Jamie kept running around shouting. But I spoke quite a while with Charlie—you know, he’s not so bad, well, kind of obnoxious, but underneath that—“ He paused to consider. “Well, I don’t think any of them are fundamentally bad. Do you?”

“No, of course not,” Sherlock asserted. “They’re all part of you.” Indigo smiled at this. “What did you think of Saucy?” he asked with some amusement.

“Oh, well, my goodness.” Sherlock chuckled at how Indigo’s ears turned slightly red. “Do you know, he’s apparently been writing vampire romances lately?”

“Yes, he just told me that.”

“Well, they’re all starring _you_ as the vampire and _rather_ explicit,” Indigo added dryly, which Sherlock did _not_ know but probably could have guessed. “Oh my G-d, and Sleepy!” Indigo exclaimed. “He’s such a strange and adorable and creepy little thing. Kind of reminds me of Gollum. You don’t know who that is, do you?”

“No. But I know what you mean,” Sherlock assured him.

“I just really wanted to hug him,” Indigo confessed.

“He doesn’t like to be touched,” Sherlock warned.

“I know. He let me pat his head, though.”

“G-d!” Sherlock was practically green with envy at this point. “Do they actually interact with each other?”

“Oh yes,” Indigo revealed. “Charlie and Saucy are always sniping at each other. I can’t tell yet if it’s like siblings or if they’re flirting.”

“Probably both,” Sherlock said without thinking, but Indigo laughed.

“Yes, probably. Everyone is very kind to Jamie and plays games with him,” he continued. “Sleepy and Fury sort of hover in the corners. Hamish just walks through occasionally to make sure everyone is behaving.”

“That is fascinating,” Sherlock declared. “Can you write all that down? All the details. I want to study it.”

“Oh certainly.”

“Does that mean you’ll be staying with Sherlock?” Mycroft finally asked, having waited what he felt was a very long time to get this answer.

Indigo felt Sherlock tense beside him. “Well, yes,” Indigo replied. Apparently that wasn’t as obvious as he’d thought it was, from the way Sherlock suddenly relaxed. Indigo sat up more to look at him. “Is that alright? Is it safe?”

“Yes, yes, it’s perfectly alright,” Sherlock assured him, holding on to him when it looked like he was moving away a millimeter. “’Safe’ is—well, I’m almost ready to go public, I think. Safe as it ever was, anyway.” He hesitated. “Hamish wasn’t completely convinced you ought to,” he was compelled to say.

“Of course I’m staying with you, Sherlock,” Indigo repeated firmly. “I wouldn’t have left at all, except—“ Painfully he cast his mind back to that horrible day, which seemed so recent to him in some ways. “Well, I think it was better Hamish took over then, because I wouldn’t have made very good decisions,” he admitted quietly. Sherlock remembered what Hamish had said about throwing himself in front of a car and pulled Indigo even closer, brushing his temple with his lips. “He did what he thought was right to protect me, too,” he went on with a dry smirk. “I feel perfectly safe, with so many people looking out for me.”

Sherlock didn’t quite know what to say—having worried for months about Indigo’s whereabouts, _then_ worried that he’d irrevocably broken what he’d been trying to save, it was difficult to believe he could get him back just like that.

Indigo sensed this. “Sherlock, perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I’m actually much more sane than my alternate personalities,” he deadpanned, “who are all a bit psychotic one way or another.” He took the other man’s hand firmly. “I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to help you. Alright?”

Sherlock smiled, relief slowly starting to roll over him. “Alright,” he agreed.

“Good. Now I’m not sure what happened to my collar,” Indigo went on, business-like. “And when was the last time you slept? You should take a nap while Hamish looks over the information you have about Moriarty so far…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all I have written for Indigo so far. Thanks for reading!


End file.
